Improving the aesthetics and usability of Squeak

Alan Kay Alan.Kay at squeakland.org
Mon Jul 8 00:04:36 UTC 2002


Good points all.
      But somebody has to do something with the suggestion in order to 
make it real enough to be included. I happen to like what Jim Benson 
is doing, for example. So the next step is to see whether Jim thinks 
his stuff is far enough along to include. And, especially, whether he 
and/or others would be willing to keep these mechanisms current 
through subsequent releases. And, whether we can get a designer to 
make a variety of skin sets (as you've noticed, everyone on this list 
has their own fairly definite opinions about such things), or whether 
there is a good enough UI for Jim's stuff so that everyone can easily 
roll their own, etc.
      These are some of the things I had hoped that the Squeak 
Foundation could come up with enough process to deal with. I'm quite 
sure that if the above all obtained, then this stuff would be 
included in a not too far off release.
      Speaking only for myself, I do agree that first impressions are 
important. OTOH, I think what Squeak needs most right now is a really 
good and useful module system. This is scratching along, but isn't 
over the hump yet. Perhaps you have some other friends who are more 
interested in substance than spectacle who might be interested in 
helping to finish and document the module stuff?

Cheers,

Alan

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At 1:25 AM +0200 7/8/02, Peter Schuller wrote:
>  > There are no vendors here to complain to. Please organize an effort
>>  to make Squeak look better if that is what you think it needs .... It
>>  has all the tools to do so ....
>
>This ties into the issue I recently brought up, regarding the acceptance
>of changes.
>
>Looking around the Wiki, there *are* nice "modern looking" skins/themes
>for Squeak (such as the one at http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/1231
>in which there are also AA fonts). VERY nice IMO. Should give a pretty
>decent first impression.
>
>But nothing of the sort is in the default official image (correct me if
>I'm wrong), and certainly not enabled by default.
>
>So suppose someone with good UI skills (meaning not me, having zero
>artistic skills) comes up with a suggestion - what are the chances of it
>even being accepted into the official Squeak release?
>
>It's a dead end. Complain - and you are told to fix it. Fix it, and no
>one does anything with the fix.
>
>I apologize if I sound overly critical, but as Johan pointed out, first
>impressions is very important (I've had multiple people be turned off
>immediately by the look of Squeak out-of-the-box), and it seems to be
>that there's some of that changes acceptance problem in the works here
>too. I like Squeak; I'd love for it to succeed. I'm "complaining" now in
>an effort to offer constructive criticism.
>
>--
>/ Peter Schuller, InfiDyne Technologies HB
>
>PGP userID: 0xE9758B7D or 'Peter Schuller <peter.schuller at infidyne.com>'
>Key retrival: Send an E-Mail to getpgpkey at scode.org
>E-Mail: peter.schuller at infidyne.com Web: http://www.scode.org


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