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New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

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Andres Fortier-2

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

Travis:
I guess this is not an answer to your original question, but
maybe it can help: I think it may be kind of hard to remove a feature
and that all the community agrees that it should definitely be removed,
so instead of removing I would try to make the browser show the used
actions and hide the others. The basic thing I guess it's to make menus
that hide the unused features (like MS stuff). A guy in our lab
implemented something like this using AspectS, for both windows menus
and popups (screenshots attached). I guess this could also be extended
to accommodate toolbar icons and make them addaptive (i.e. dynamically
remove toolbar buttons that are not used and add the most used menu
items in the toolbar).

Mi 2 cents.

Best regards,
Andrés

Travis Griggs escribió:

> I'm going for an "original" topic to beat to death here. :)
>
> All software accrues features. Over time, it turns out that some of the
> features become obsolete. Or of little enough value, that carrying them
> forward is not worth the cost, because they get in the way of other
> things. The "Lean" thing. There are some obvious advantages to doing so;
> by vigilantly keeping your interface simple, the approachability is that
> much better. So... if you could take as many as 4 (or less) things out
> of the Refactoring Browser, what would they be? What are the items you
> look at and find yourself saying: "Why is that still in there? I never
> use that? And I would never show a newbie that." Just the Browser
> please. If you want to nominate another tool to remove 4 things from,
> throw that at the bottom and we can start another thread.
>
> --
> Travis Griggs
> Objologist
> "It’s actually much easier to get around on ice than it is on dry
> land—if you use skates." - Paul Graham
>
>
>

ModernMenus.png (210K) Download Attachment

Reinout Heeck-2

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

Travis:

> I guess this is not an answer to your original question, but
> maybe it can help: I think it may be kind of hard to remove a feature
> and that all the community agrees that it should definitely be
> removed, so instead of removing I would try to make the browser show
> the used actions and hide the others. The basic thing I guess it's to
> make menus that hide the unused features (like MS stuff). A guy in our
> lab implemented something like this using AspectS, for both windows
> menus and popups (screenshots attached). I guess this could also be
> extended to accommodate toolbar icons and make them addaptive (i.e.
> dynamically remove toolbar buttons that are not used and add the most
> used menu items in the toolbar).
>
>

There is this package 'Learning menus' that I used in the past.... I
totally hated.
Mainly because it threw off my spatial memory when navigating menus.
When items move around my fingers don't know where they are so my eyes
have to take over - and my flow is down the drain :-(

R
-

Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs (SNN)

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Travis Griggs-3

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In other words at least one person uses every feature there is and none can be removed; at least that's the impression I get so far, even broken ones like undo/redo. Travis, at some point you may just have to make a call yourself :)

Cheers!

-Boris
(Sent from a BlackBerry)

----- Original Message -----
From: Reinout Heeck <[hidden email]>
To: VWNC List <[hidden email]>
Sent: Fri Mar 23 05:36:58 2007
Subject: Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

Travis:
> I guess this is not an answer to your original question, but
> maybe it can help: I think it may be kind of hard to remove a feature
> and that all the community agrees that it should definitely be
> removed, so instead of removing I would try to make the browser show
> the used actions and hide the others. The basic thing I guess it's to
> make menus that hide the unused features (like MS stuff). A guy in our
> lab implemented something like this using AspectS, for both windows
> menus and popups (screenshots attached). I guess this could also be
> extended to accommodate toolbar icons and make them addaptive (i.e.
> dynamically remove toolbar buttons that are not used and add the most
> used menu items in the toolbar).
>
>
There is this package 'Learning menus' that I used in the past.... I
totally hated.
Mainly because it threw off my spatial memory when navigating menus.
When items move around my fingers don't know where they are so my eyes
have to take over - and my flow is down the drain :-(

R
-

Bruce Badger

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

On 23/03/07, Boris Popov <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
>
> In other words at least one person uses every feature there is and none can
> be removed; at least that's the impression I get so far, even broken ones
> like undo/redo. Travis, at some point you may just have to make a call
> yourself :)

I didn't see anyone say they used the cut/copy/paste buttons on the tool bar :-)

--
Make the most of your skills - with OpenSkills
http://www.openskills.org/

Dave Stevenson-2

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Reinout Heeck-2

"Learning" menus and permanent removal are not the only options
available. We could provide settings to specify which menu items to
include, and if people like hardcopy they can select it. We could have
preset browsing profiles for newbies and advanced users, which could be
customized and saved.

It's like the eternal conflict over source formatting - the only way to
make everyone happy is to allow customizable formatting that is applied
every time source is viewed. If we want to eliminate the clutter, allow
each user to decide what "clutter" is to them.

Dave

Reinout Heeck wrote:

> Travis:
>> I guess this is not an answer to your original question, but
>> maybe it can help: I think it may be kind of hard to remove a feature
>> and that all the community agrees that it should definitely be
>> removed, so instead of removing I would try to make the browser show
>> the used actions and hide the others. The basic thing I guess it's to
>> make menus that hide the unused features (like MS stuff). A guy in our
>> lab implemented something like this using AspectS, for both windows
>> menus and popups (screenshots attached). I guess this could also be
>> extended to accommodate toolbar icons and make them addaptive (i.e.
>> dynamically remove toolbar buttons that are not used and add the most
>> used menu items in the toolbar).
>>
>>
> There is this package 'Learning menus' that I used in the past.... I
> totally hated.
> Mainly because it threw off my spatial memory when navigating menus.
> When items move around my fingers don't know where they are so my eyes
> have to take over - and my flow is down the drain :-(
>
>
>
> R
> -
>
>
>

Travis Griggs-3

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Travis Griggs-3

On adding preferences to leave everything in, but have a gazillion check boxes to turn everything on/off...

<snip>

"...

Or of little enough value, that carrying them forward is not worth the cost, because they get in the way of other things. ... There are some obvious advantages to doing so; by vigilantly keeping your interface simple, the approachability is that much better.

..."

Simpler approachability is a happy side affect here. The real issue for me is "carrying them forward is not worth the cost, because they get in the way of other things." I.e. too many features means it begins to be weighed down by its own complexity from an improvement/maintenance point-of-view.

Travis Griggs

Objologist

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root" - Henry David Thoreau

OCIT

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

OK, but I'm warning you that you will piss off Diana if you get rid of
"hardcopy" and you don't want her mad :)

btw, I would use a multi-selection in tree , have a select all option of
course :)

when you do this again it would be nice if you enhanced the plugability of
RB because I guarantee you that you will invariably end up cutting
something out that somebody wants and that they will try to put it back
and of course be very annoyed that they now have to spend their cycles
just to get back to the place where they can use feature X

btw, where the heck is 7.5 ?

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:25:40 -0500, Travis Griggs <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> On adding preferences to leave everything in, but have a gazillion
> check boxes to turn everything on/off...
>
> <snip>
> "...
>> Or of little enough value, that carrying them forward is not worth
>> the cost, because they get in the way of other things. ... There
>> are some obvious advantages to doing so; by vigilantly keeping your
>> interface simple, the approachability is that much better.
> ..."
>
> Simpler approachability is a happy side affect here. The real issue
> for me is "carrying them forward is not worth the cost, because they
> get in the way of other things." I.e. too many features means it
> begins to be weighed down by its own complexity from an improvement/
> maintenance point-of-view.
>
> --
> Travis Griggs
> Objologist
> "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is
> striking at the root" - Henry David Thoreau
>
>

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

Charles A. Monteiro-2

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Dave Stevenson-2

I think I like you :)

but not in a funny type of way ...

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:15:10 -0500, Dave Stevenson <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> "Learning" menus and permanent removal are not the only options
> available. We could provide settings to specify which menu items to
> include, and if people like hardcopy they can select it. We could have
> preset browsing profiles for newbies and advanced users, which could be
> customized and saved.
>
> It's like the eternal conflict over source formatting - the only way to
> make everyone happy is to allow customizable formatting that is applied
> every time source is viewed. If we want to eliminate the clutter, allow
> each user to decide what "clutter" is to them.
>
> Dave
>
> Reinout Heeck wrote:
>> Travis:
>>> I guess this is not an answer to your original question, but
>>> maybe it can help: I think it may be kind of hard to remove a feature
>>> and that all the community agrees that it should definitely be
>>> removed, so instead of removing I would try to make the browser show
>>> the used actions and hide the others. The basic thing I guess it's to
>>> make menus that hide the unused features (like MS stuff). A guy in our
>>> lab implemented something like this using AspectS, for both windows
>>> menus and popups (screenshots attached). I guess this could also be
>>> extended to accommodate toolbar icons and make them addaptive (i.e.
>>> dynamically remove toolbar buttons that are not used and add the most
>>> used menu items in the toolbar).
>>>
>>>
>> There is this package 'Learning menus' that I used in the past.... I
>> totally hated.
>> Mainly because it threw off my spatial memory when navigating menus.
>> When items move around my fingers don't know where they are so my eyes
>> have to take over - and my flow is down the drain :-(
>> R
>> -
>>

--
Charles A. Monteiro
http://wiki.nycsmalltalk.org
http://www.monteirosfusion.com
http://monteirofusion.blogspot.com

Mark Pirogovsky-3

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by OCIT

What I would like to see in the RB

is the menu Item similar to the Launcher MenuBar option<Browse> where I
can browse arbitrary sends/implemetns/references...

Charles A. Monteiro wrote:

> OK, but I'm warning you that you will piss off Diana if you get rid of
> "hardcopy" and you don't want her mad :)
>
> btw, I would use a multi-selection in tree , have a select all option
> of course :)
>
> when you do this again it would be nice if you enhanced the plugability
> of RB because I guarantee you that you will invariably end up cutting
> something out that somebody wants and that they will try to put it
> back and of course be very annoyed that they now have to spend their
> cycles just to get back to the place where they can use feature X
>
> btw, where the heck is 7.5 ?
>
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:25:40 -0500, Travis Griggs <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
>> On adding preferences to leave everything in, but have a gazillion
>> check boxes to turn everything on/off...
>>
>> <snip>
>> "...
>>
>>> Or of little enough value, that carrying them forward is not worth
>>> the cost, because they get in the way of other things. ... There
>>> are some obvious advantages to doing so; by vigilantly keeping your
>>> interface simple, the approachability is that much better.
>>
>> ..."
>>
>> Simpler approachability is a happy side affect here. The real issue
>> for me is "carrying them forward is not worth the cost, because they
>> get in the way of other things." I.e. too many features means it
>> begins to be weighed down by its own complexity from an improvement/
>> maintenance point-of-view.
>>
>> --
>> Travis Griggs
>> Objologist
>> "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is
>> striking at the root" - Henry David Thoreau
>>
>>
>
>
>

stéphane ducasse-2

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Travis Griggs-3

Hi travis

The most annoying aspect of VW is not the number of excessive menus,
it is the
inconsistencies of choices (ok this menu item is not in the RB menu
but in the transcript.....argh)
and the fact that we cannot perform the action on the debugger as
well as in the browser (senders...) based on shortcuts.

Now on macintel programming in VW is a real pain after programming in
Squeak where shortcuts works everywhere.
I sincerly hope that the new vm will help there because this is
terrrrrrrrrrrribly frustrating.

Stef

Samuel S. Shuster <sames@interaccess.com>

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Travis Griggs-3

Travis:

>On adding preferences to leave everything in, but have a gazillion
>check boxes to turn everything on/off...

Interestingly, this seems to point to something else in my mind:

An Application like Word allows you to build your own toolbar and other
applications even let you modify your menu bar.

So, given ALL of the preceding, it seems that it's not about leaving things out,
it seems that it may be more about creating the ability to allow the user to
customize. Then, the tools can be supplied with a minimal set of menus/toolbars,
etc, and let the user add and/or remove items they want.

And So It Goes
Sames
______________________________________________________________________

Samuel S. Shuster [|]
VisualWorks Engineering, GUI Project
Smalltalk Enables Success -- What Are YOU Using?

Charles A. Monteiro-2

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by stéphane ducasse-2

Amen,

although I think that has been a running task i.e. I believe Vasilli had
it on his queue, to get tools such as the debugger and RB to work
consistently. Why can't I refactor in the debugger i.e. if I want to?

far more important than getting rid of stuff.

You know what would be really nice is to know exactly what Cincom engineer
is in charge of what AR or highly requested by the community issue. Also
what about AR prioritization?

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:47:09 -0500, stéphane ducasse
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi travis
>
> The most annoying aspect of VW is not the number of excessive menus, it
> is the
> inconsistencies of choices (ok this menu item is not in the RB menu but
> in the transcript.....argh)
> and the fact that we cannot perform the action on the debugger as well
> as in the browser (senders...) based on shortcuts.
>
> Now on macintel programming in VW is a real pain after programming in
> Squeak where shortcuts works everywhere.
> I sincerly hope that the new vm will help there because this is
> terrrrrrrrrrrribly frustrating.
>
> Stef

--
Charles A. Monteiro
http://wiki.nycsmalltalk.org
http://www.monteirosfusion.com
http://monteirofusion.blogspot.com

Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs (SNN)

RE: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

I would stay away from the dangerous territory that is community control over Cincom's internal development projects, resources and priorities. It's one thing to provide feedback and suggestions; it's another to assume that we have any measure of control, which we don't, i.e. VisualWorks isn't Squeak :)

Cheers!

-Boris

--
+1.604.689.0322
DeepCove Labs Ltd.
4th floor 595 Howe Street
Vancouver, Canada V6C 2T5
http://tinyurl.com/r7uw4

[hidden email]

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

This email is intended only for the persons named in the message
header. Unless otherwise indicated, it contains information that is
private and confidential. If you have received it in error, please
notify the sender and delete the entire message including any
attachments.

Thank you.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles A. Monteiro [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 12:40 PM
> To: stéphane ducasse; Travis Griggs
> Cc: VW NC
> Subject: Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground
>
> Amen,
>
> although I think that has been a running task i.e. I believe Vasilli had
> it on his queue, to get tools such as the debugger and RB to work
> consistently. Why can't I refactor in the debugger i.e. if I want to?
>
> far more important than getting rid of stuff.
>
> You know what would be really nice is to know exactly what Cincom engineer
> is in charge of what AR or highly requested by the community issue. Also
> what about AR prioritization?
>
>
>
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:47:09 -0500, stéphane ducasse
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> > Hi travis
> >
> > The most annoying aspect of VW is not the number of excessive menus, it
> > is the
> > inconsistencies of choices (ok this menu item is not in the RB menu but
> > in the transcript.....argh)
> > and the fact that we cannot perform the action on the debugger as well
> > as in the browser (senders...) based on shortcuts.
> >
> > Now on macintel programming in VW is a real pain after programming in
> > Squeak where shortcuts works everywhere.
> > I sincerly hope that the new vm will help there because this is
> > terrrrrrrrrrrribly frustrating.
> >
> > Stef
>
>
>
> --
> Charles A. Monteiro
> http://wiki.nycsmalltalk.org
> http://www.monteirosfusion.com
> http://monteirofusion.blogspot.com

Charles A. Monteiro-2

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Samuel S. Shuster <sames@interaccess.com>

Damm Sam, I think that is just what I said :), always did like you :)

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 12:42:08 -0500, Samuel S. Shuster
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Travis:
>
>> On adding preferences to leave everything in, but have a gazillion
>> check boxes to turn everything on/off...
>
> Interestingly, this seems to point to something else in my mind:
>
> An Application like Word allows you to build your own toolbar and other
> applications even let you modify your menu bar.
>
> So, given ALL of the preceding, it seems that it's not about leaving
> things out,
> it seems that it may be more about creating the ability to allow the
> user to
> customize. Then, the tools can be supplied with a minimal set of
> menus/toolbars,
> etc, and let the user add and/or remove items they want.
>
> And So It Goes
> Sames
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> Samuel S. Shuster [|]
> VisualWorks Engineering, GUI Project
> Smalltalk Enables Success -- What Are YOU Using?

--
Charles A. Monteiro
http://wiki.nycsmalltalk.org
http://www.monteirosfusion.com
http://monteirofusion.blogspot.com

Charles A. Monteiro-2

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs (SNN)

Just my way of rubbing it in that I have for quite a while, as a customer,
not just a developer feel that Cincom Smalltalk does not seem to spend
their time wisely :)

and once in a while sure enough Cincom reminds me of it.

I have said as much before :) , done doing it on this thread.

ciao,

Charles

On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:37:37 -0500, Boris Popov <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> I would stay away from the dangerous territory that is community control
> over Cincom's internal development projects, resources and priorities.
> It's one thing to provide feedback and suggestions; it's another to
> assume that we have any measure of control, which we don't, i.e.
> VisualWorks isn't Squeak :)
>
> Cheers!
>
> -Boris
>

--
Charles A. Monteiro
http://wiki.nycsmalltalk.org
http://www.monteirosfusion.com
http://monteirofusion.blogspot.com

Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs (SNN)

RE: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

Unfortunately for us, customer ~~ shareholder :(

-Boris

--
+1.604.689.0322
DeepCove Labs Ltd.
4th floor 595 Howe Street
Vancouver, Canada V6C 2T5
http://tinyurl.com/r7uw4

[hidden email]

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

This email is intended only for the persons named in the message
header. Unless otherwise indicated, it contains information that is
private and confidential. If you have received it in error, please
notify the sender and delete the entire message including any
attachments.

Thank you.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles A. Monteiro [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 12:58 PM
> To: Boris Popov; stéphane ducasse; Travis Griggs
> Cc: VW NC
> Subject: Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground
>
> Just my way of rubbing it in that I have for quite a while, as a customer,
> not just a developer feel that Cincom Smalltalk does not seem to spend
> their time wisely :)
>
> and once in a while sure enough Cincom reminds me of it.
>
> I have said as much before :) , done doing it on this thread.
>
> ciao,
>
> Charles
>
>
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:37:37 -0500, Boris Popov <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
> > I would stay away from the dangerous territory that is community control
> > over Cincom's internal development projects, resources and priorities.
> > It's one thing to provide feedback and suggestions; it's another to
> > assume that we have any measure of control, which we don't, i.e.
> > VisualWorks isn't Squeak :)
> >
> > Cheers!
> >
> > -Boris
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Charles A. Monteiro
> http://wiki.nycsmalltalk.org
> http://www.monteirosfusion.com
> http://monteirofusion.blogspot.com

Adrian Kuhn-3

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Charles A. Monteiro-2

+1

On 22 Mar 2007, at 18:04 , Charles A. Monteiro wrote:

> or it can also encourage the use of large fonts :)
>
> not being funny, larger fonts are easier on my eyes
>
>
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:16:57 -0500, Boris Popov
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> I do use 'zoom' a lot when browsing version history graph, other than
>> that it does nothing but encourage very long methods :)
>>
>> -Boris
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Charles A. Monteiro
> http://wiki.nycsmalltalk.org
> http://www.monteirosfusion.com
> http://monteirofusion.blogspot.com

Travis Griggs-3

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Charles A. Monteiro-2

On Mar 23, 2007, at 12:39, Rich Demers wrote:

I'd be happy just to know that Cincom is adequately funding Smalltalk product engineering and marketing. The impression I've gotten to date is that they are working on a shoestring budget.

But our shoestrings all have cool balloons on them. :)

Travis Griggs

Objologist

"Dying men never wish they'd spent more time at the office"

Runar Jordahl

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

In reply to this post by Samuel S. Shuster <sames@interaccess.com>

On 3/23/07, Samuel S. Shuster <[hidden email]> wrote:
> An Application like Word allows you to build your own toolbar and other
> applications even let you modify your menu bar.

Toolbars are so 1990s... :-)

Note that Microsoft's Office team left the idea of allowing the end
user customize the toolbars. There are too many problems with this
approach. In Office 2007 you can only customize the Quick Access
Toolbar. Read about their experiences with user customization here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx

In many ways Office's problem was the same as VisualWorks has today:
Large, nested menus that grow each release, as new functionality is
added. Short operations names and small icons fail to describe the
operations properly. A lot of options are disabled, as the users has
not selected relevant data. Luckily VisualWorks has not (yet) gone
crazy with (customizable) toolbars.

In Office 2007 the GUI is totally rewritten. Toolbars and drop down
menus are gone forever and replaced with the "Ribbon":
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/runarj/blogView?showComments=true&entry=3321095709

To me the Office 2007 GUI – and the Ribbon – is about providing one,
consistent GUI for all users. Available operations are directly shown,
and not hidden deep in menu structures. It is an effective way of
grouping and displaying only the relevant operations you can do, given
the selected data. An advantage of the Ribbon is that it scales well
to available screen real estate
(http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/18/482233.aspx).

Now, I am not saying VisualWorks should directly copy the Office team,
but it's at least worth looking at Office 2007 to have some fresh
ideas about GUI design.

Runar

Isaac Gouy-2

Re: New Topic To Beat Into the Ground

--- Runar Jordahl <[hidden email]> wrote:
-snip-
> Now, I am not saying VisualWorks should directly
> copy the Office team,
> but it's at least worth looking at Office 2007 to
> have some fresh
> ideas about GUI design.

aka if you can't afford to do your own usability
testing then borrow from other people's results.

(People's /opinion/ of what they use and what's best
can differ markedly from what they actually use and
how well they accomplish a task with different approaches.)

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