Scott,

Personally I'd opt *for* the optional buttons but *against* the annotation
panes. The optional buttons are useful for the most common operations
(although there should actually be some measurement on what the most
commonly used functions are) but personally I can't get anything useful out
of the annotation panes. The information provided is only useful under very
specific circumstances (how often do you need to know who touched a certain
method or what change sets it's included in) and so, because of the lack of
commonly needed information, I'd rather not complicate the user interface
here.

Just my $.02,
  - Andreas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Wallace [mailto:Scott.Wallace at disney.com]
> Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 4:26 PM
> To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Cc: recipient list not shown
> Subject: optional panes out-of-the-box, and other preferences
> 
> 
> We're seeking opinions about the out-of-the-box settings of various 
> preferences and parameters in Squeak 3.0.
> 
> One consideration is whether or not the browsers and other tools 
> should, by default, show the optional annotation panes and button 
> panes.
> 
> My sense is that many people do prefer to use these panes if they 
> know about them.  Some long-time Smalltalkers don't like them, and 
> many newcomers don't know of them, but a preponderance of us fall 
> between those two extremes and do use them.  So my inclination is to 
> have the ancillary panes showing by default.  Certainly anyone who 
> proactively did *not* want them would have no difficulty in turning 
> them off in Preferences.
> 
> (Incidentally, I think that before too long -- but after 3.0 -- we 
> will have controls that allow optional panes to be added and removed 
> on-the-fly in any window, just as they can in any modern web browser. 
> When this comes along, this should give us the best of both worlds, 
> and it will reduce the importance of whatever choice we make right 
> now regarding the optional panes.)
> 
> Everyone with opinions to register regarding the out-of-box settings 
> of these two preferences, or those of any other preference, 
> parameter, project color, default object size, default font, etc.: 
> this would be a good time to make yourselves heard.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
>   -- Scott
>