A couple of simple ergonomic adjustments

I didn't anything with liberation fonts. I even test it in two images. A
copy or one of development I use and other brand new 7067. I'm suspectin of
the vm version.

Question: where do you get a copy of that VM version? I'm looking in the
squeak fto site but I'm unable to found other newer than 3.7.1

Sebastian

Il giorno mer, 11/07/2007 alle 15.56 -0300, Sebastian Sastre ha scritto:

> Question: where do you get a copy of that VM version? I'm looking in the
> squeak fto site but I'm unable to found other newer than 3.7.1

I grabbed the source and a vmmaker image from here:
http://www.squeakvm.org/unix/release/ 

        Giovanni

On 10/07/07, Mikael Kindborg <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Yes, now when I look at the Vera Sans fonts I use, they are not at all sharp.
> Giovanni's fonts look better, and Juan's rendering technique looks very good!

I think Juan rendered his fonts on windows, which favors sharpness at
the cost of distorting the font shapes (they align the curves to the
pixel grid).
Giovanni uses freetype or a similar algorithm which does precise font
rendering (different fonts stay recognizable at small sizes) but looks
more blurry. As a typo-and-mac-fanatic, I prefer this approach :D

Maybe the sharp rendering can be done with freetype by turning font
hinting all the way up (and using fonts with the hinting information
indeed).

--
Damien Pollet
type less, do more [ | ] http://typo.cdlm.fasmz.org

It would be nice if we could collect all these free fonts and package  
them to work with squeak (may be in the
squeak-dev image).
Stef

On 9 juil. 07, at 13:16, Giovanni Corriga wrote:

would be nice to have that in squeak-dev 3.9 and 3.10

stef

On 9 juil. 07, at 20:31, Juan Vuletich wrote:

Il giorno mer, 11/07/2007 alle 23.03 +0200, Damien Pollet ha scritto:
Actually, the blur comes from Squeak's own TTF engine. Using the
FreeType plugin I get fonts that look very good on screen.
I'd post a screenshot, but somehow every screenshot I take of my
FreeTypePlugin-enabled image looks like crap on my Fedora Linux box.
Does anyone know why?

        Giovanni

To continue on this minimalist trend: 

So, Stef, Board, please advice:

Who needs to do what to get it there? The code is there, with a small
set of fonts. And it is trivial to add anyone the user wants.

Should Edgar and the release team just load them? Yes? Edgar, please
doit ASAP!

Should de Board give a commend? Yes? Board, please doit!

Should I do something else? Then, please tell me what.

Cheers,
Juan Vuletich

stephane ducasse escribió:

The release team decides what goes into a release.

- Bert -

On Jul 12, 2007, at 15:16 , Juan Vuletich wrote:

---

De: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] En nombre de Romain Robbes
Enviado el: Jueves, 12 de Julio de 2007 09:38
Para: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Asunto: Re: A couple of simple ergonomic adjustments

To continue on this minimalist trend: 

I changed one method so that the resizing corner grips are invisible until the mouse hovers on them. This makes the windows look less busy.

    Romain

On 7/9/07, Sebastian Sastre <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi there,

 

    I wanted to share a couple of simple and cheap customizations I've made on my daily Squeak image that I feel improves (phisical) ergonomy. I suggest those guys that make that customized images take a look and ofcourse the official Squeak to see if, triviality aside, this is cool enough.

   

    To install, 1) evaluate in a workspace the code in Preferences.text attached file and 2) install the ListItemColorPreferences.1.cs changeset file.

 

    The changeset with 2 method modifications that make the lists use the preferences instead of harcoded colors for highlighting. The preferences code is in the other attached file.

 

    Criteria was: minimalism, a better Fitts law score and better contrast.

 

    Minimalism. No splitter handlers and pollute the windows with scrolls only when rigorously necessary.

    Fitts. Make the scrolls wider to reduce the time aiming the pointer device (mouse or whatever) before the click.

    Contrast. Take care on contrast making it better for items selected in a list.

 

    I encourage to use better contrast for highlighting in selected list items. Try to read from 1 meter of the screen with the default red over lightgray (low contrast) and then customize it to a better contrasted version. I liked the readability of cyan over dark blue but is so different from the main theme that I choosed a not that radical one (like the one I've put in the preferences file).

 

    As developers parsing the low contrast symbols hundred of times a day ofen for hours at that low contrast can wastely "raise the temp of our graphic cards", this is, unecessary visual stress.

 

    Who knows.. everything to save a couple of headaches :)

 

    all the best,

 

Sebastian Sastre

PD: when I had some more time for this I plan to make a preference of opening menues and submenues with a click (like it is now) or only with a mouse over. This can save hundreds of clicks a week and so the clicker finger join.

 

Thanks for this! I hate the look of the grips but I like the feedback.
This is a great compromise.

On 7/12/07, Romain Robbes <[hidden email]> wrote:

And some not-so-simple ergonomic adjustments ;-)

A piccy of my Squeak desktop along with one of our applications.

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/65338133@N00/789894614/

Nearly ready to release into the community as an add-on package (minus the
report builder),
though does modify (fix) quite a bit of morphic too.

Uses the FreetypePlus package (good work Andy!).

Supports a few different "themes", including one that looks more like
"standard" squeak.
Provides a nice UI for some standard (business application like) services,
choosing colours, selecting a font etc.
Also provides a framework for creating "standard" morphs (checkboxes,
drop-lists etc).

If there's any interest I'll speed up getting it ready for release.

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Giovanni
Corriga
Sent: 09 July 2007 12:16 pm
To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Subject: Re: A couple of simple ergonomic adjustments


Il giorno lun, 09/07/2007 alle 11.25 +0200, Mikael Kindborg ha scritto:
> Hi, those are nice changes. I also feel that a font like VeraSans
> greatly improves the user experience. Looks much more
> professional/fun/clear in my opinion. I speculate that people who try
> out Squeak would be more positive to the system with better looking
> default fonts.

Even better, we could use the free and unencumbered Liberation fonts:
https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/

Here's a screenshot of one of my work images:
http://www.corriga.net/~giovanni/Hacking.image.png

        Giovanni

Gary, that looks fantastic!

The different dialogs you have in this screenshot also look very solid:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=789144211&size=l

Are you a company developing apps in Squeak? Very nice work.

Best, Micke

2007/7/12, Gary Chambers <[hidden email]>:

Indeed. Most of the UI stuff was intended to support the Report Builder (our
clients are used to some VB grimness), so a  consisten look-and-feel was
required. Still, I love Squeak and (most of the time) Morphic. Very
flexible, if rather obtuse at times!

We are looking to give something back to the community, we'll see if some of
the things can be accepted since I've had to rather hack some of Morhpic to
give us some ease-of-introduction to tradional developers. Don't worry too
much, we are committed to supporting this with however Squeak goes....

Again, thanks to Andy Tween for his work with Freetype. Was going to have to
tackle platform fonts on my own otherwise!

I use Gentoo at (office) work and Windows 2000 at home, making sure this is
portable.

At Pinesoft (http://www.pinesoft.co.uk) we are committed to moving our
business forward into a more flexible model and Squeak allows us to do that
while keeping the customers happy!

(...remembers the joy of easily doing graphical stuff with Smalltalk V for
DOS, ooh, around 20 years ago. Gosh, twenty years and still Smalltalk is the
best!).

Thanks for the support!


-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Mikael
Kindborg
Sent: 12 July 2007 7:17 pm
To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Subject: Re: A couple of simple ergonomic adjustments


Gary, that looks fantastic!

The different dialogs you have in this screenshot also look very solid:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=789144211&size=l

Are you a company developing apps in Squeak? Very nice work.

Best, Micke

2007/7/12, Gary Chambers <[hidden email]>:

> And some not-so-simple ergonomic adjustments ;-)

> A piccy of my Squeak desktop along with one of our applications.

>  http://www.flickr.com/photos/65338133@N00/789894614/

> Nearly ready to release into the community as an add-on package (minus the
> report builder),
> though does modify (fix) quite a bit of morphic too.

> Uses the FreetypePlus package (good work Andy!).

> Supports a few different "themes", including one that looks more like
> "standard" squeak.
> Provides a nice UI for some standard (business application like) services,
> choosing colours, selecting a font etc.
> Also provides a framework for creating "standard" morphs (checkboxes,
> drop-lists etc).

> If there's any interest I'll speed up getting it ready for release.

This looks rather promising. Many new Squeakers ask for common
controls. The lack of standard GUI elements is a show stopper for
many. With your work Squeak will be even more interesting.
I can't wait to get my hands on it ;-)

Regards
Andreas

Since we are talking about ergonomics, I haven't done any coding in  
modern images in some time (my production system is 3.7 based) and  
when I started working on a fix to a minor problem in the HTML parser  
in a very new image, I found myself frustrated at every turn.

1) When I browse senders, I get a browser with a bunch of methods.  
If I modify one of the methods, I DO NOT WANT IT TO VANISH FROM THE  
BROWSER ON SAVE!  I keep having to go find the freakin' thing for  
every edit.  STOP IT!

2) When I select a class in the browser, please show all the methods  
initially in the methods pane.  What used to take 1 click now takes a  
couple.  Consider that I'm browsing up and down a hierarchy looking  
for the level that contains the implementation for a method.  It  
takes a couple clicks just to look to see if the method is there.

In general, the click per operation count seems to be going up, while  
useful buttons in the browser button bar seem to be vanishing (where  
is the one that lets me find ivar references now?)

Rant over for now.

-Todd Blanchard

On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:46:34 -0700, Todd Blanchard <[hidden email]>  
wrote:

> 2) When I select a class in the browser, please show all the methods  
> initially in the methods pane.  What used to take 1 click now takes a  
> couple.  Consider that I'm browsing up and down a hierarchy looking for  
> the level that contains the implementation for a method.  It takes a  
> couple clicks just to look to see if the method is there.

+1

Thank you.

At the present time the "upgrade" consists of a fair few MC packages. I have
had to make the methods rather more resilient then necessay to avoid
problems with Monticello loading (not quite atomic yet). As I said, if there
is interest it may be worth creating a unified package.

There are some, perhaps significant, changes to some of the fundamental
methods in Morphic that could potentially break other packages, though I
have tested as many as possible and tried to minimise any adverse effects.

Most changes to existing classes are due to a wish to have the development
enviroment benefit from the enhancements.

Some of the changes may slow things down, while others provide a boost to
counteract that!

It will be interesting to see how Morphic evolves which may lead to
requiring fewer workarounds!

At present, with separate packages, it is possible to pick-and-choose the
enhancements that a user requires, at the expense of a few conditional
method invocations.

I have tried to work mostly *with* Morphic in terms of implementing the
"themes", as in using what Morphic provides (in terms of borders, fillStyles
etc) rather than going down the subclassed-morph approach. This does mean
that the themes are a little limited, though the plus-side is better
integration within the Squeak environment.

In terms of fonts, Strike, TTC (why the 'C'?) and Freetype are supported. In
fact, whatever works in the current environment.

There are major fixes to the window corner grips, splitters and title-bar
size handling that should make people happier.
In particular, there are many changes to various morphs to determine their
proper minimum extent with regard to various layout policies. These may
cause a problem to some packages, though I feel I have implemented them in
the way that they were originally intended.

As I remarked in an earlier post, we are committed to ensuring these changes
move forward *with* Squeak, although it would be nice (easier) if some of
the changes could be incorporated. It is not as simple as providing a fix to
an existing Mantis bug.. (I hope this doesn't put you off!).

At present the packages have a "Pinesoft" prefix. That can be changed if
incorporation is required. We would like to give this back to the community
that has supported us.

I have added some preferences to allow various levels of involvement with
the modifications and, at present there are three themes to choose from:
"StandardSqueak" (mostly like you will be used to); "SoftSqueak"; Vistary
(as in the screen shot).

The Taskbar can be enabled via preference and is themed along with theming
of the WorldMainDockingBar.
Yet to do is providing preference browser based setting of the
colour/fillstyles used in the UI, though this can be done through code at
present.

I welcome any feedback.

Gary

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Andreas
Wacknitz
Sent: 12 July 2007 8:09 pm
To: 'The general-purpose Squeak developers list'
Subject: Re: A couple of simple ergonomic adjustments




> And some not-so-simple ergonomic adjustments ;-)

> A piccy of my Squeak desktop along with one of our applications.

>  http://www.flickr.com/photos/65338133@N00/789894614/

> Nearly ready to release into the community as an add-on package (minus
> the report builder), though does modify (fix) quite a bit of morphic
> too.

> Uses the FreetypePlus package (good work Andy!).

> Supports a few different "themes", including one that looks more like
> "standard" squeak. Provides a nice UI for some standard (business
> application like) services, choosing colours, selecting a font etc.
> Also provides a framework for creating "standard" morphs (checkboxes,
> drop-lists etc).

> If there's any interest I'll speed up getting it ready for release.

This looks rather promising. Many new Squeakers ask for common controls. The
lack of standard GUI elements is a show stopper for many. With your work
Squeak will be even more interesting. I can't wait to get my hands on it ;-)

Regards
Andreas

That happens for me, though we use our own system browsers that makes sure
it happens...

(that annoyed me too!)

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Blake
Sent: 12 July 2007 8:50 pm
To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Subject: Re: Ergonomics - Rant


On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:46:34 -0700, Todd Blanchard <[hidden email]>  
wrote:

> 2) When I select a class in the browser, please show all the methods
> initially in the methods pane.  What used to take 1 click now takes a  
> couple.  Consider that I'm browsing up and down a hierarchy looking for  
> the level that contains the implementation for a method.  It takes a  
> couple clicks just to look to see if the method is there.

+1

"Juan Vuletich" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...
I believe that, before adding any form of sub-pixel anti-aliased glyph
rendering to an official distribution, the patent/license situation
surrounding such technologies should be considered by the ReleaseTeam and/or
the Board.

For a very clear and concise appraisal, please see
http://david.freetype.org/cleartype-patents.html

I have chosen to separate the sub-pixel aa parts of the FreeType Plus
packages from the patent free parts. I have also included warnings in the
descriptions of the sub-pixel package release on SqueakMap.

Just a heads-up
Cheers,
Andy