[UI] "the new big thing" [was: MenuMorph hand weirdness]

[Klaus D. Witzel]

I'm not the experpert on how and where to start with a *general* UI  
framwork but I follow Gary's invitation to "All speculation welcomed".

Having read the LivelyKernel-SourceCode-0.7, I noticed the following (list  
not necessarily complete):

- orientated towards a possible WebOS
- resources have URL (basic interoperability of material)
- imports, exports to/from other of the same kind
- graphical base objects out of the SVG box
- SVG+style is teachable to/learnable by the masses
- widgets look easy to use/reuse
- small # of support classes besides the UI framework
- worlds, hands, morphs, ticks are shoulders+neck of that Atlas
- Events / bindings are like a scripter expects them
- no observable restrictions to animations (limited only by SVG, good)
- things can be glued together without headaches,
  within the limitations (good) of SVG

For sure some of the concepts of LivelyKernel require that mixIns/traits  
are supported but, who cares with a dynamic language and living objects.

And there is that remarkable comment, "my kingdom for a Smalltalk block!"  
in Core.js :-D

So my question is, how about borrowing some things from LivelyKernel?

/Klaus

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:50:22 +0100, Gary Chambers wrote:

> Will try that as a (feel) start...
> As for other efforts, I'm game for it...
> Just the (maybe last) uncharted territory in themeability...
>
> -------
>
> This was a question to gauge the importance of having menus themed as
> standard, in the general IDE sense... more of fixing what we have rather
> than the new big thing.
>
> In terms of "the new big thing" I think we have to become very much more
> focussed. That means really working together. Perhaps everyone could  
> make a
> prototype system to demonstrate to us all... then work together with the
> best bits?
>
> As a start, we should be able to easily conform to any particular "look  
> and
> feel"... take the Java abstraction classes as an example. We could also
> incorporate "native" (Win32/GTK) as part of the framework (different to  
> the
> "emulated" Java). I'd really like anything we do to be non-exclusive and
> all-encompassing, both potentially attainable goals.
>
> Might sound a bit "bloaty" but a framework that can plug-and-play our
> concepts would be nice...
>
> I think it comes down to the way(s) you want to be able to describe a
> user-interface. Need to be able to express the intention of the ui in a
> flexible manner but, also, for some applications, have exact control  
> (plus a
> lot of in-betweens). ToolBuilder does a lot of that, but is not yet rich
> enough to do the latter...
>
> There is no easy answer, however... yet. All speculation welcomed!
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ui-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org
>> [mailto:ui-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org]On Behalf Of Matthew
>> Fulmer
>> Sent: 19 November 2007 8:38 PM
>> To: ui at lists.squeakfoundation.org
>> Subject: [UI] Re: MenuMorph hand weirdness
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 19, 2007 at 02:17:47PM -0500, Bill Schwab wrote:
>> > Gary,
>> >
>> > Obviously, it is your call.  I will admit that Squeak's menus could  
>> use
>> > a face lift, but I am much more concerned about Morphic/hand weirdness
>> > (feel) than the appearance (which has improved over time).  So, if  
>> they
>> > look and work better, I won't complain.  If you decide that there are
>> > more important battles to fight with the required effort, so be it.
>>
>> I fixed the Menu hand weirdness in
>> http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=6687
>>
>> Load MenuMorph-BetterMouseHandling.2.cs. I don't know if this
>> should go in UI enhancements or base Morphic. I use this change
>> set in all my images (and can't live without it anymore). I
>> haven't tried to push it other than by announcing it here (on the
>> UI list) once before.
>>
>> --
>> Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/
>> Help improve Squeak Documentation: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/808
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