[Trying not to be too much of a curmudgeon, but I feel like this shouldn't go unsaid.]

I am not so sure that permitting promiscuous modification of UI look and feel is an important change, and perhaps not even a good one.  It can be a very bad thing if multiple alternative UI looks become routine in Squeak.  

With user interfaces, aesthetics -- a significant factor to be sure, take a distant second to consistency and its consequent -- ease of use.  Squeak offers a uniform UI across platforms, which is good so far as it goes, but which has in fact been a losing proposition elsewhere (Sun abandoned its proposed standard for plaf with Java; Tcl/Tk abandoned its plan for a uniform UI for local UI's).  Nevertheless, the while the market demand of users to have access to information through their native look and feel available has overcome new "homogenous" approaches, I don't think that the alternative -- "roll your own," would be accepted, perhaps not even tolerated by the marketplace of ideas over the long run.

[From my own experience: I was often tittilated by every "change the UI" utility that crossed my desk in the early (and even present) MacOS days; and often played with it for awhile, yet almost always went back to the "standard look" as a matter of course, with at most changes in color splashes.  While "roll-your-own" from within Windows and other applications may be relatively common applications, the vast majority of users do little with these tools, I think, not because they do not know how to do so (though surely many do not), but because substantial deviations from the "expected" UI are not desired.]

I take the abandonment of Metal and Motif in Java and Tcl/Tk not to be a repudiation of homogeneity, but rather a consequence of it: the desire to have the underlying look and feel of the principal OS overcame the cross-platform benefits.  Please do not mistake this for a call to abandon the present OS.  Rather, I am calling for consistency of the OS, whatever it might be.  (And accept that the notion of "consistency" might reasonably embrace adopting multiple native-platform emulations through a "pluggable look and feel" mechanism).

In my view, facilitating promiscuous proliferation of arbitrary UI's as a matter of course is a dangerous and losing proposition for Squeak, however "important for attracting new users" (a point with which I am not sure I agree).  Far superior, if the decision is made to abandon a uniform UI, would be to adopt a pluggable l&F and issue UI's consistent with the usual suspects: (MacOS, Windows, Motif, Metal, etc. . .).  This ultimately has the salutary effect of permitting, while still marginalizing, new experimental approaches to UI as "non-standard" until and unless they are fully embraced.

While I can appreciate the desire to permit user-specific variations, the great (both commercial and theoretical) lesson of the last twenty years of desktop design (which by the way, began with Squeak's immediate predecessor, Smalltalk 80) is that uniformity of UI and UI appearance yields substantial benefits to the user, even where it stifles the imagination of individuals who would roll-their-own on an application by application basis.

As someone who grew up in the heady 70's and early 80's, when UI was a large part of every review concerning a commercial program; when litigating the "/"-style UI of Lotus 1-2-3 (really Visicalc) was not considered nuts (at least by others); and when in excess of 50% of our effort was rewriting the baseline of what is now called an API for all input/output of a program (and a massive part of the remainder spent in tuning the same); I would not go back to those days for anything.

While I consider the present API-mindload of modern GUI to be a travesty, it is still a far better thing than what we used to do in the software business.  Moreover, I have seen awesome functionality die commercially at the hands of a programming team that just didn't "get it."  Nowadays, we are all endplayed into following, at least at the highest levels (and ironically at the lowerest levels) a fixed "motif" for graphic UI's, and hopefully, we can spend our time and energy focusing on "getting it right," both functionally and in our respective tweaks in the "center" of the API.  The benefit is faster development time and more consistent, and hence usable programs across applications.

Let us not lose an essential element of practical utility in the pursuit of "attracting new users."  Perhaps, something like PLAF is a good thing, perhaps not, but I am still of the view that merely parameterizing UI for the general hacker and encouraging "roll your own" once again is a mistake and disservice, both to the craft and the body of users.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MIME :peter.smet at flinders.edu.au > Sent: Monday, June 14, 1999 9:46 AM
> To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Subject: Re: MorphicWindows TitleBar and 3DLook
> > > This is a great change!
> > I think these kinds of 'cosmetic changes' are really important
> for attracting new users. In many cases, unfortunately, It > doesn't matter how great and
> powerful a programming environment is if it doesnt look good. > I have filed both changes in permanently!
> > Although I love Squeak, I must admit I too found it's
> interface 'quirky' initially. > > > Peter
> > > > >Hi folks,
> >
> >here is a little change set for extending the title bar of morphic
> >windows >with a gradient fill morph. Do the file in before > you open a morphic
> >project.
> >
> >It looks very nice if you also load Bert's 3D Look. I also > attached his
> >change >set to this mail. >
> >A preview is given at: http://www.rz.tu-ilmenau.de/~ai041/sqk3d.gif
> >
> >What do you think about extending the Squeak UI with different window
> >Styles? >There is an interesting project doing such things > with the normal
> >MS-Windows >UI at http://www.windowblinds.net/.
> >A lot of interesting stuff can also be found at http://www.themes.org. >I think a lot of people would like to use squeak if it provides a better
>UI
>than the boring old Smalltalk look. And Morphic is the best way to >create such customizable environments.
>
>A little tip for adding a background image to the squeak desktop:
> >| bg |
>bg := Form fromBMPFileNamed: 'background.bmp'.
>ScheduledControllers screenController model form: bg.
>Display restoreAfter: [].
>
>Bye >Torsten
>
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