New Editor

On 19.06.2012, at 03:10, John Dougan wrote:

> I'm not against platform coherence, I just don't think that it matters
> that much any more.

I would like to strongly disagree! My experience is absolutely contrary. During the past years I have observed a significant relationship between platform coherence and sales. Making your desktop product look and feel like a web browser is the quickest way to lose money.

However, it is important to distinguish between visual design and behavior. The term "Look & Feel" suggests a dependency where there actually isn't one. I agree with you that the /look/ is no longer that critical and a slick custom design is far superior to a half-baken native emulation.

I can however not stress enough how critical platform coherent behavior, or "feel", is. I've put the following points together in the hope they may be helpful to others:

(1) Terms and Layout: Each platform has its conventions and notions regarding how things are named, where they are placed, how they are grouped, prioritzed, etc. This is extremely important for menus and dialogs; less important for content windows. Failing to meet the conventions here means frustrating end users.

(2) Interactivity: Whether a preference change takes immediate effect (Mac), or requires an OK button (Windows, Linux). How menu items and widgets get dynamically disabled, hidden or re-labeled depending on context. Doing this right makes a new user instantly feel comfortable with your product.

(3) Keyboard mapping: Generic keyboard shortcuts have to be coherent with the rest of the platform. Application-specific shortcuts should be customizable by the end user, because everyone have their own habits that are hard to change. I did a lot in this regard already, but am still receiving hefty complaints. Failing with this one can make a product almost unusable, if the domain requires a lot of editing.

(4) Selections: How widgets and editors behave with respect to making selections, inserting and replacing content, getting input focus, scrolling, etc. Fortunately there are only few differences, so this is less an issue.

(5) OS Integration: Your product needs to behave nicely in how it launches and quits, enters and leaves hibernation mode, uses native file and print dialogs, provides smooth copy/paste capabilities with other apps, supports scripting, handles "save", "save as", "revert to last saved", etc.

At the end of the day, the equiation is very simple: The more alien an average end user feels with your product, the more money you lose.

It appears to me that Smalltalkers tend to center around their own views as developers a lot, while neglecting the demands of end users. IMO, this is the main reason why Smalltalk is stuck in a niche. I can live with a suboptimal and unconventional environment quite well. My end users can't.

Andre


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I'm not against platform coherence, I just don't think that it matters

that much any more.

I would like to strongly disagree! My experience is absolutely contrary. During the past years I have observed a significant relationship between platform coherence and sales. Making your desktop product look and feel like a web browser is the quickest way to lose money.

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Hi,

1. Make the editor Pango based.
2. Make a clear seperation between end-user text editor and code editor.
3. I think that Andre is convincing about the fact that end-users want to gain time by reusing their platform specific habbits.
4. For end-user text editors verify how external grammar checkers operate. Lotus Notes for instance is closed and a pain to use. All browsers and text editors and word processors now easily allow external grammar checking.

Regards,

@+Maarten,

 

-----Original Message-----
From: "Arden Thomas" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, 15 June, 2012 21:14
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [vwnc] New Editor

Dear VW NC folks;

 

We are in the process of revamping and modernizing our text editor, which is used in a number of places in the product.

 

What are your wishes/needs/requirements in a text editor?

Any api level access you have dreamed about to accomplish some tasks?

Any current restrictions that are an obstacle?

 

Please let us know your thoughts.  Thanks!

 

Regards

 

Arden Thomas

Arden Thomas

Cincom Smalltalk Product Manager

[hidden email]

845 296 0686

Cincom Smalltalk - It makes hard things easier, the impossible, possible

"Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication" - Leonardo Da Vinci

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My impression is that native-looking/feeling applications over the three main platforms is a non-goal for Cincom due to both limited resources and significant legacy issues. I mean this in a non-perjorative sense - it's a non-trivial effort given the constraints.

It would be good to get specific guidance from Cincom on this point i.e. let us not state or assume something as a goal or expectation when it is clearly unrealistic. Such guidance would better inform users and short-circuit discussions such as these.

On 19/06/2012, at 5:35 PM, Karsten Kusche wrote:

Antony Blakey
--------------------------
CTO, Linkuistics Pty Ltd
Ph: 0438 840 787

Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
  -- George Orwell


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Speaking as a private person here: I would strongly suggest to not constrain yourself to what you think might be affordable to Cincom, or that Cincom would tell up-front what they think is affordable. It would skew your preferences and mislead Cincom's strategy. It would be fundamentally against the idea of a poll among users.

Cheers
Helge

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] Im Auftrag von Antony Blakey
Gesendet: Dienstag, 19. Juni 2012 11:02
An: VWNC list
Betreff: Re: [vwnc] Platform Coherence (was: New Editor)

My impression is that native-looking/feeling applications over the three main platforms is a non-goal for Cincom due to both limited resources and significant legacy issues. I mean this in a non-perjorative sense - it's a non-trivial effort given the constraints.

It would be good to get specific guidance from Cincom on this point i.e. let us not state or assume something as a goal or expectation when it is clearly unrealistic. Such guidance would better inform users and short-circuit discussions such as these.

On 19/06/2012, at 5:35 PM, Karsten Kusche wrote:

Antony Blakey
--------------------------
CTO, Linkuistics Pty Ltd
Ph: 0438 840 787

Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
  -- George Orwell


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It seems to me that we need 2 editors, a code editor, and a text editor.
We don't want syntax highlighting in a text editor, etc.

Additionally, while it is somewhat important that the code editor conform to
the platform. It is critical that the text editor conforms to the platform.

Terry

===========================================================
Terry Raymond
Crafted Smalltalk
80 Lazywood Ln.
Tiverton, RI  02878
(401) 624-4517      [hidden email]
===========================================================
behavior.
> The term "Look & Feel" suggests a dependency where there actually isn't
> one. I agree with you that the /look/ is no longer that critical and a
slick
> custom design is far superior to a half-baken native emulation.
>
> I can however not stress enough how critical platform coherent behavior,
or
> "feel", is. I've put the following points together in the hope they may be
> helpful to others:
>
> (1) Terms and Layout: Each platform has its conventions and notions
> regarding how things are named, where they are placed, how they are
> grouped, prioritzed, etc. This is extremely important for menus and
dialogs; receiving
> hefty complaints. Failing with this one can make a product almost
unusable, if
> the domain requires a lot of editing.
>
> (4) Selections: How widgets and editors behave with respect to making
> selections, inserting and replacing content, getting input focus,
scrolling, etc. as
> developers a lot, while neglecting the demands of end users. IMO, this is
the
> main reason why Smalltalk is stuck in a niche. I can live with a
suboptimal and
> unconventional environment quite well. My end users can't.
>
> Andre
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> vwnc mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc



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Speaking from experience, it's also pretty useless to ask for things that are impossible to get.  I like Antony's suggestion; it would be useful to have Arden lay out some guidance as to what is feasible.  This is one of the things that Product Managers and Project Managers do - manage user expectations with dashes of cold reality :)


On Jun 19, 2012, at 5:42 AM, Nowak, Helge wrote:

James Robertson
http://www.jarober.com
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I agree; IMHO, this thread is starting to look like a bit of a cop-out in requirement gathering with no proposals from Cincom to frame the discussion and anchor it in reality. Imagine Apple in 2005 going "Hey, we're thinking of entering a phone market, what do you guys wanna see features-wise (also, any name suggestions)?".

Text/code editor isn't what defines product direction or even one cycle. Are we going to have to live through similar threads for all the other parts of the system in need of improvement and/or rehaul? As an example, I keep looking across the pond at all the neat stuff happening in the Pharo/GLASS/Amber world and while there are some rumblings that VisualWorks will support some of the code exchange being established in that meta-community, none of them ever seem to result in functional, approachable implementations, be it Monticello, GitHub (STIG) or whatnot. Heck, even Seaside; PR's version is now 7 months old (2011-11-01).

I absolutely love the fact that community gets to feel involved in the development and/or planning process, don't get me wrong, but there needs to be a rational balance of product direction as defined by Cincom versus the demands of the most vocal members of the mailing list. I suspect there are many people out there with real needs who aren't even on this list or who don't bother chiming in.

-Boris

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of James Robertson
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 8:36 AM
To: VWNC NC
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Platform Coherence (was: New Editor)

Speaking from experience, it's also pretty useless to ask for things that are impossible to get.  I like Antony's suggestion; it would be useful to have Arden lay out some guidance as to what is feasible.  This is one of the things that Product Managers and Project Managers do - manage user expectations with dashes of cold reality :)


On Jun 19, 2012, at 5:42 AM, Nowak, Helge wrote:

James Robertson
http://www.jarober.com
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As said, this was my private opinion, Arden's view may or may not be different. I won't continue this discussion.

Yet I have to say (again my private opinion and not meant derogatory to anybody on the list): people with "real needs" who "don't bother chiming in" - or don't contact their vendor directly - don't have real needs.

Cheers
Helge

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] Im Auftrag von Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs
Gesendet: Dienstag, 19. Juni 2012 14:50
An: James Robertson; VWNC NC
Betreff: Re: [vwnc] Platform Coherence (was: New Editor)

I agree; IMHO, this thread is starting to look like a bit of a cop-out in requirement gathering with no proposals from Cincom to frame the discussion and anchor it in reality. Imagine Apple in 2005 going "Hey, we're thinking of entering a phone market, what do you guys wanna see features-wise (also, any name suggestions)?".

Text/code editor isn't what defines product direction or even one cycle. Are we going to have to live through similar threads for all the other parts of the system in need of improvement and/or rehaul? As an example, I keep looking across the pond at all the neat stuff happening in the Pharo/GLASS/Amber world and while there are some rumblings that VisualWorks will support some of the code exchange being established in that meta-community, none of them ever seem to result in functional, approachable implementations, be it Monticello, GitHub (STIG) or whatnot. Heck, even Seaside; PR's version is now 7 months old (2011-11-01).

I absolutely love the fact that community gets to feel involved in the development and/or planning process, don't get me wrong, but there needs to be a rational balance of product direction as defined by Cincom versus the demands of the most vocal members of the mailing list. I suspect there are many people out there with real needs who aren't even on this list or who don't bother chiming in.

-Boris

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of James Robertson
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 8:36 AM
To: VWNC NC
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Platform Coherence (was: New Editor)

Speaking from experience, it's also pretty useless to ask for things that are impossible to get.  I like Antony's suggestion; it would be useful to have Arden lay out some guidance as to what is feasible.  This is one of the things that Product Managers and Project Managers do - manage user expectations with dashes of cold reality :)


On Jun 19, 2012, at 5:42 AM, Nowak, Helge wrote:

James Robertson
http://www.jarober.com
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Helge,

My comments weren't directed at you, I was simply stating that in a real world, any poll for product direction should have some boundaries defined, as in "here's what we're thinking of doing, did we miss something, did we include something that you think isn't important?". Without that you have opinions that cover such a wide berth that it's nearly impossible to keep the conversation coherent and on-point.

As for the latter, yes, there's a category of people who talk directly to Cincom, which should, in fact, make it easier to come up with at least some proposal for public discussion instead of a generic "hey, what should we do next?".

-Boris

-----Original Message-----
From: Nowak, Helge [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 9:17 AM
To: Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs; James Robertson; VWNC NC
Subject: AW: [vwnc] Platform Coherence (was: New Editor)

As said, this was my private opinion, Arden's view may or may not be different. I won't continue this discussion.

Yet I have to say (again my private opinion and not meant derogatory to anybody on the list): people with "real needs" who "don't bother chiming in" - or don't contact their vendor directly - don't have real needs.

Cheers
Helge

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] Im Auftrag von Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs
Gesendet: Dienstag, 19. Juni 2012 14:50
An: James Robertson; VWNC NC
Betreff: Re: [vwnc] Platform Coherence (was: New Editor)

I agree; IMHO, this thread is starting to look like a bit of a cop-out in requirement gathering with no proposals from Cincom to frame the discussion and anchor it in reality. Imagine Apple in 2005 going "Hey, we're thinking of entering a phone market, what do you guys wanna see features-wise (also, any name suggestions)?".

Text/code editor isn't what defines product direction or even one cycle. Are we going to have to live through similar threads for all the other parts of the system in need of improvement and/or rehaul? As an example, I keep looking across the pond at all the neat stuff happening in the Pharo/GLASS/Amber world and while there are some rumblings that VisualWorks will support some of the code exchange being established in that meta-community, none of them ever seem to result in functional, approachable implementations, be it Monticello, GitHub (STIG) or whatnot. Heck, even Seaside; PR's version is now 7 months old (2011-11-01).

I absolutely love the fact that community gets to feel involved in the development and/or planning process, don't get me wrong, but there needs to be a rational balance of product direction as defined by Cincom versus the demands of the most vocal members of the mailing list. I suspect there are many people out there with real needs who aren't even on this list or who don't bother chiming in.

-Boris

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of James Robertson
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 8:36 AM
To: VWNC NC
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Platform Coherence (was: New Editor)

Speaking from experience, it's also pretty useless to ask for things that are impossible to get.  I like Antony's suggestion; it would be useful to have Arden lay out some guidance as to what is feasible.  This is one of the things that Product Managers and Project Managers do - manage user expectations with dashes of cold reality :)


On Jun 19, 2012, at 5:42 AM, Nowak, Helge wrote:

James Robertson
http://www.jarober.com
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On 19.06.2012, at 10:05, Karsten Kusche wrote:

> it's currently impossible in VisualWorks to create proper desktop applications.

Strictly speaking, yes, but it is well possible to do that to a sufficient extent.

Although it takes considerable effort to get there. I've done a fair bit of work in this direction for Mac and Windows during the past years, but unfortunately my resources are extremely limited, so I will likely not find the time to isolate it from other code and package it for the public repository anytime soon.

The point I am trying to make: There is hope. The goal is within reach.

Andre


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Although it takes considerable effort to get there. I've done a fair bit of work in this direction for Mac and Windows during the past years, but unfortunately my resources are extremely limited, so I will likely not find the time to isolate it from other code and package it for the public repository anytime soon.

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On 6/19/2012 3:24 PM, Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs wrote:
> Helge,
>
> My comments weren't directed at you, I was simply stating that in a real world, any poll for product direction should have some boundaries defined, as in "here's what we're thinking of doing, did we miss something, did we include something that you think isn't important?". Without that you have opinions that cover such a wide berth that it's nearly impossible to keep the conversation coherent and on-point.

+1, and the prime reason that I did not reply here even though I follow
this thread.

R
-


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On 6/19/2012 3:35 PM, andre wrote:
> On 19.06.2012, at 10:05, Karsten Kusche wrote:
>
>> it's currently impossible in VisualWorks to create proper desktop applications.
> Strictly speaking, yes, but it is well possible to do that to a sufficient extent.
>
> Although it takes considerable effort to get there. I've done a fair bit of work in this direction for Mac and Windows during the past years, but unfortunately my resources are extremely limited, so I will likely not find the time to isolate it from other code and package it for the public repository anytime soon.
>
> The point I am trying to make: There is hope. The goal is within reach.


As long as Cincom doesn't maintain & support your fixes this is a bogus
claim.

Pipe dream...




R
-

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Alan,
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I think this level of discussion probably belongs in its own thread.  We are leaving the "what features would the community like to see in an editor" topic way, way back there in the dusk :)

On Tuesday, June 19, 2012, Thomas Sattler wrote:

Alan,

Whatever steps are taken next, we need to get away from the one huge flaw that is designed into Visual Works.  The flaw to which I am referring, of course, is that the IDE, as well the application the developer is working on, both reside in the same image.  So an error in the application can crash the IDE.  And a loop in the application can hang the IDE to the point that the IDE needs to be killed by the Operating System, and then the source needs to be recovered from the change log.

Whenever I would point out this "feature" to someone who is coming from a different language, they'd look at me like I am from Mars.  We look at this and see normalcy, because it is what we are used to.  Others look at this and see lunacy.

It might have been defendable back when we were working on machines with a total of 64 meg of memory, where there was not enough physical space in memory for two images.  But today, as I sit here with my 6GB machine, it's not defendable any more.

Just my 2c.

--Tom

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 5:37 PM, Alan Knight <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hmm. Making the entire IDE an Eclipse plugin would involve rather more than just re-using a text editor. And I think it would have quite a few consequences that people might not be happy with. In my new job I'm working a lot in the "Dart Editor", not an Eclipse plugin, but something built on top of the Eclipse RCP, working in Dart, which is in many ways quite Smalltalk-like, although it doesn't have the liveness of the environment that Smalltalk does. It's got a lot of nice features, and the people working on it are building in more every day, including responding quite nicely to my numerous bug reports and feature requests. And in comparison to full-blown Eclipse it's much simpler and much faster. Nevertheless, it's a long way from a Smalltalk environment, and I'd suggest working in it for a while as an introduction to what things might be like if we just re-used an existing IDE :-)

Also, AFAIK, full undo is already fully done. Or at least mostly done.

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Jon Paynter <[hidden email]> wrote:

What Thomas said

Then just make sure most of the functions of modern text editors are available.
The 2 big ones for me is Full undo, and key mappings.

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 12:22 PM, Thomas Sattler <[hidden email]> wrote:

Arden, why don't we just redo the entire IDE as an Eclipse plugin?

If we as Smalltalk programmers march under the banner of "reuse", let's prove we mean it.  Let's reuse what other people have already done, instead of re-inventing the wheel with something as basic as a text editor.

--Tom

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Arden Thomas <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear VW NC folks;

 

We are in the process of revamping and modernizing our text editor, which is used in a number of places in the product.

 

What are your wishes/needs/requirements in a text editor?

Any api level access you have dreamed about to accomplish some tasks?

Any current restrictions that are an obstacle?

 

Please let us know your thoughts.  Thanks!

 

Regards

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> From: Terry Raymond
>Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 10:10 AM
>
>
>One could use something like Opentalk to separate the IDE from the runtime.
>But reusing an IDE that is not smalltalk would make it much harder to extend the IDE.


See OOVM/Resilient use of Eclipse IDE -- "They have customized Eclipse for Resilient.  ... Programming support
for debugging, profiling, introspection in the plugin...  They built the
 Eclipse support using the Eclipse plugin support"


http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?entry=3261222720

http://www.esug.org/data/ESUG2004/Workshop/resilient-esug2004.pdf
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Our applications are tightly bound to the IDE and extensions using our our business class browser, having the IDE as part of the application is criticial to us.  I don't see it as a problem either.


On 2012-06-19 1:10 PM, Terry Raymond wrote:

One could use something like Opentalk to separate the IDE from the runtime.

But reusing an IDE that is not smalltalk would make it much harder to extend the IDE.

 

Terry

 

===========================================================

Terry Raymond

Crafted Smalltalk

80 Lazywood Ln.

Tiverton, RI  02878

(401) 624-4517      [hidden email]

===========================================================

 

From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Thomas Sattler
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 11:53 AM
To: Alan Knight
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [vwnc] New Editor

 

Alan,

 

Whatever steps are taken next, we need to get away from the one huge flaw that is designed into Visual Works.  The flaw to which I am referring, of course, is that the IDE, as well the application the developer is working on, both reside in the same image.  So an error in the application can crash the IDE.  And a loop in the application can hang the IDE to the point that the IDE needs to be killed by the Operating System, and then the source needs to be recovered from the change log.

 

Whenever I would point out this "feature" to someone who is coming from a different language, they'd look at me like I am from Mars.  We look at this and see normalcy, because it is what we are used to.  Others look at this and see lunacy.

 

It might have been defendable back when we were working on machines with a total of 64 meg of memory, where there was not enough physical space in memory for two images.  But today, as I sit here with my 6GB machine, it's not defendable any more.

 

Just my 2c.

 

--Tom

 

 

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 5:37 PM, Alan Knight <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hmm. Making the entire IDE an Eclipse plugin would involve rather more than just re-using a text editor. And I think it would have quite a few consequences that people might not be happy with. In my new job I'm working a lot in the "Dart Editor", not an Eclipse plugin, but something built on top of the Eclipse RCP, working in Dart, which is in many ways quite Smalltalk-like, although it doesn't have the liveness of the environment that Smalltalk does. It's got a lot of nice features, and the people working on it are building in more every day, including responding quite nicely to my numerous bug reports and feature requests. And in comparison to full-blown Eclipse it's much simpler and much faster. Nevertheless, it's a long way from a Smalltalk environment, and I'd suggest working in it for a while as an introduction to what things might be like if we just re-used an existing IDE :-)

 

Also, AFAIK, full undo is already fully done. Or at least mostly done.

 

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Jon Paynter <[hidden email]> wrote:

What Thomas said

Then just make sure most of the functions of modern text editors are available.
The 2 big ones for me is Full undo, and key mappings.

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 12:22 PM, Thomas Sattler <[hidden email]> wrote:

Arden, why don't we just redo the entire IDE as an Eclipse plugin?

If we as Smalltalk programmers march under the banner of "reuse", let's prove we mean it.  Let's reuse what other people have already done, instead of re-inventing the wheel with something as basic as a text editor.

--Tom

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Arden Thomas <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear VW NC folks;

 

We are in the process of revamping and modernizing our text editor, which is used in a number of places in the product.

 

What are your wishes/needs/requirements in a text editor?

Any api level access you have dreamed about to accomplish some tasks?

Any current restrictions that are an obstacle?

 

Please let us know your thoughts.  Thanks!

 

Regards

 

               Arden Thomas

 

Arden Thomas

Cincom Smalltalk Product Manager

[hidden email]

<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="tel:845%20296%200686" target="_blank">845 296 0686

 

Cincom Smalltalk - It makes hard things easier, the impossible, possible

 

"Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication" - Leonardo Da Vinci

 

 

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-- 
Dennis Smith                 		         +1 416.798.7948
Cherniak Software Development Corporation   Fax: +1 416.798.0948
509-2001 Sheppard Avenue East        [hidden email]
Toronto, ON M2J 4Z8              [hidden email]
Canada			         http://www.CherniakSoftware.com
Entrance off Yorkland Blvd south of Sheppard Ave east of the DVP

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