Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

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Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Jeffrey Odell-2
Pardon the obscure Rolling Stones reference, but those are some DAMN
PRETTY ICONS!  WooHoo!  Looking good guys!

jlo


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Steve Alan Waring
I'll second that.

Looks fantastic on w2k!

I had to blink a couple of times to believe what I was seeing :)

I am not sure what the XP look and feel is, but RC1 seems to have introduced
some of into w2k. How did you do that?!? My icon text changes color when I
hover over them, and then after a 1-2 second delay the icon is selected.

Dolphin5 RC is definitely the most modern look and feel app I have seen on
w2k. The toolbars, the new icons, icons in the menus, all look great to me.

Thanks!
Steve


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Jeffrey Odell-2
I was reacting to it on XP - I'll load it on my w2k machine at work and
see what the differences are.

I agree it is one the the nicest looking Smalltalks!

jlo

Steve Waring wrote:

> I'll second that.
>
> Looks fantastic on w2k!
>
> I had to blink a couple of times to believe what I was seeing :)
>
> I am not sure what the XP look and feel is, but RC1 seems to have introduced
> some of into w2k. How did you do that?!? My icon text changes color when I
> hover over them, and then after a 1-2 second delay the icon is selected.
>
> Dolphin5 RC is definitely the most modern look and feel app I have seen on
> w2k. The toolbars, the new icons, icons in the menus, all look great to me.
>
> Thanks!
> Steve
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Bill Schwab
Hello all,

> I was reacting to it on XP - I'll load it on my w2k machine at work and
> see what the differences are.
>
> I agree it is one the the nicest looking Smalltalks!
>
> jlo
>
> Steve Waring wrote:
> > I'll second that.
> >
> > Looks fantastic on w2k!
> >
> > I had to blink a couple of times to believe what I was seeing :)

I wondered about this.  To be honest, I had to blink to see it - at all.
Comments appear below.  She's a pretty girl, but, IMHO she needs to wear
less makeup.

Have a good one,

Bill

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

Andy and Blair,

Congratulations on the release candidate!  So far, I appear to have packages
loaded and unit tests running (with one failure that I _still haven't
fixed<g>).

My Win2k machine is refusing to load images that I double click.  It's not
something that I would ordinarily do, but, if I can help find a problem in
the installer, just yell.

Just being honest, I don't like the new appearance.  Maybe it's a partial XP
look gone wrong on 2k problem, which is perhaps all the more likely given
that I took the custom install branch.  If the following sounds nutty to
you, there might be an installer-related reason for it.

There are elements of the toolbars that I like, but it seems overdone to me.
The pastel colors and "quick sketch" style of the graphics makes (for me at
least) things harder to see.  The visual object finder toolbar button is
vastly less distinct, which is a shame because it's REALLY(!!) useful.

I actively dislike the system folder icons; I think it quite literally gave
me a headache, though it's been a long week so it wouldn't have taken much
eye stress to do it.  A little scripting restored the #largeIcons style, and
that helps.  Even so, I went back to D4 for comparison, and IMHO its cleaner
look is vastly prefereable and much easier to read.

The D5 download web page look good.  You're probably aware that the release
notes are (or were when I last tried them) empty.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Jeffrey Odell-2
Hm.. obviously the look is subjective.  Also I'm looking at it on a
1600x1200 hi-res laptop display - very sharp.  Maybe it looks better at
higher resolution.  I still like the tart ;>

If you remove the XP manifest, does it revert to a non XP look?  This
might be more to your liking if it works.  I haven't tried it -

jlo

Bill Schwab wrote:

> Hello all,
>
>
>>I was reacting to it on XP - I'll load it on my w2k machine at work and
>>see what the differences are.
>>
>>I agree it is one the the nicest looking Smalltalks!
>>
>>jlo
>>
>>Steve Waring wrote:
>>
>>>I'll second that.
>>>
>>>Looks fantastic on w2k!
>>>
>>>I had to blink a couple of times to believe what I was seeing :)
>>
>
> I wondered about this.  To be honest, I had to blink to see it - at all.
> Comments appear below.  She's a pretty girl, but, IMHO she needs to wear
> less makeup.
>
> Have a good one,
>
> Bill
>
> ==============
>
> Andy and Blair,
>
> Congratulations on the release candidate!  So far, I appear to have packages
> loaded and unit tests running (with one failure that I _still haven't
> fixed<g>).
>
> My Win2k machine is refusing to load images that I double click.  It's not
> something that I would ordinarily do, but, if I can help find a problem in
> the installer, just yell.
>
> Just being honest, I don't like the new appearance.  Maybe it's a partial XP
> look gone wrong on 2k problem, which is perhaps all the more likely given
> that I took the custom install branch.  If the following sounds nutty to
> you, there might be an installer-related reason for it.
>
> There are elements of the toolbars that I like, but it seems overdone to me.
> The pastel colors and "quick sketch" style of the graphics makes (for me at
> least) things harder to see.  The visual object finder toolbar button is
> vastly less distinct, which is a shame because it's REALLY(!!) useful.
>
> I actively dislike the system folder icons; I think it quite literally gave
> me a headache, though it's been a long week so it wouldn't have taken much
> eye stress to do it.  A little scripting restored the #largeIcons style, and
> that helps.  Even so, I went back to D4 for comparison, and IMHO its cleaner
> look is vastly prefereable and much easier to read.
>
> The D5 download web page look good.  You're probably aware that the release
> notes are (or were when I last tried them) empty.
>
> Have a good one,
>
> Bill
>
> --
> Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
> [hidden email]
>
>
>


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Antony Blakey-4
In reply to this post by Bill Schwab
I think the private/public + deprecated idea functions well. And of
course the product is fantastic, but not yet perfect, so...

Bill Schwab wrote:

> There are elements of the toolbars that I like, but it seems overdone to me.
> The pastel colors and "quick sketch" style of the graphics makes (for me at
> least) things harder to see.  The visual object finder toolbar button is
> vastly less distinct, which is a shame because it's REALLY(!!) useful.
>
> I actively dislike the system folder icons; I think it quite literally gave
> me a headache, though it's been a long week so it wouldn't have taken much
> eye stress to do it.  A little scripting restored the #largeIcons style, and
> that helps.  Even so, I went back to D4 for comparison, and IMHO its cleaner
> look is vastly prefereable and much easier to read.

I tile some aspects of my st desktop with the system folder, my project
workspace and a transcript down one side, and the rest of the space
given to overlapping browsers. I think the system window uses up a lot
of real estate to no advantage. I known that you can use the toolbar
buttons on each window for most things, but the idea of the system
folder as a launchpad is less attractive if it uses up too much real estate.

Even at 1600x1200 the system folder seems too large - at smaller
resolutions it will dominate for no good reason.

I second Bill's point about clarity. The _primary_ requirement of icons
is recognition, not in a semantic sense per se i.e. representational or
conceptual accuracy, but in the sense of consistency, recall and
discrimination between multiple images. The SCHB and CHB icons suffer
badly from that problem, and therefore on the toolbar it becomes purely
positional (which admittedly comes to dominate after habituation).

I think that adding the dolphin logo to icons that exist with the
dolphin application is redundant at best and actively deleterious in the
case of the toolbar icons. Wasting the few pixels you have, on the ball,
makes the icons less distinct.
-------------------------
Antony Blakey
mailto:[hidden email]
Linkuistics Pty Ltd
Adelaide, South Australia


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Steve Alan Waring
In reply to this post by Bill Schwab
Hi Bill,

> There are elements of the toolbars that I like, but it seems overdone to
me.
> The pastel colors and "quick sketch" style of the graphics makes (for me
at
> least) things harder to see.  The visual object finder toolbar button is
> vastly less distinct, which is a shame because it's REALLY(!!) useful.

While the icons are not as defined as in D4, on my screen and to my eyes
they are not hard to see. If anything they are more defined than the
monochrome icons that Windows explorer and Outlook express etc use. What
kind of screen are you using?

Steve


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Bill Schwab
In reply to this post by Antony Blakey-4
Antony,

> I think the private/public + deprecated idea functions well. And of
> course the product is fantastic, but not yet perfect, so...

FWIW, I find the deprecated icon to be much less obvious; that little orange
thing was very helpful.


> I tile some aspects of my st desktop with the system folder, my project
> workspace and a transcript down one side, and the rest of the space
> given to overlapping browsers. I think the system window uses up a lot
> of real estate to no advantage.

I wouldn't go as far as to say "no" advantage; but, it is too spread out,
and I have been getting less and less use from it with time as a result.  In
fact, screen space was the thing that finally pushed me over the edge with
the package browser.  However, I'm really enjoying my browser filter goodie,
and it now uses the (not quite as much actually) space that I gave the PB in
the past.  I now use the filter to launch a PB when I need it, and close it
when I'm done with it.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Bill Schwab
In reply to this post by Steve Alan Waring
Steve, Jeff,

> > There are elements of the toolbars that I like, but it seems overdone to
> me.
> > The pastel colors and "quick sketch" style of the graphics makes (for me
> at
> > least) things harder to see.  The visual object finder toolbar button is
> > vastly less distinct, which is a shame because it's REALLY(!!) useful.
>
> While the icons are not as defined as in D4, on my screen and to my eyes
> they are not hard to see. If anything they are more defined than the
> monochrome icons that Windows explorer and Outlook express etc use. What
> kind of screen are you using?

So far I've installed only on my new P4.  I'm using 1024x768 and a Sampo 17
inch monitor.  The latter is really quite nice; I had my doubts about it
when I first connected it, but, after some tweaking of the settings, it
produces a very nice image.


> Hm.. obviously the look is subjective.  Also I'm looking at it on a
> 1600x1200 hi-res laptop display - very sharp.  Maybe it looks better at
> higher resolution.  I still like the tart ;>
>
> If you remove the XP manifest, does it revert to a non XP look?  This
> might be more to your liking if it works.  I haven't tried it -

It says that it's not installed, and that's as it should be, because I have
Win2k vs. XP.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]


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Re: Such a pretty... (+ BUG)

Antony Blakey-4
In reply to this post by Bill Schwab
Bill Schwab wrote:
> Antony,
>
>
>>I think the private/public + deprecated idea functions well. And of
>>course the product is fantastic, but not yet perfect, so...
>
>
> FWIW, I find the deprecated icon to be much less obvious; that little orange
> thing was very helpful.

My point there was that deprecation can now be orthogonal to
public/private. but either I spoke too soon, or there's a bug - the icon
shown for public deprecated is the private deprecated icon, which makes
me think that the attributes aren't treated orthogonally, merely that
the deprecated icon has changed.

> I wouldn't go as far as to say "no" advantage;

It's not that the system window has no advantage - far from it, I keep
it open and uncovered. It's that there is no benefit gained by paying
the cost of using more screen real estate for the large icons.

I know it's easy to scale the icons to any size using Flipper and the
iconExtent aspect (IIRC), so my point is about the default size.

> However, I'm really enjoying my browser filter goodie

Yes, but I really wish it would remember the filters rather than making
me do an 'open' each time.

-------------------------
Antony Blakey
mailto:[hidden email]
Linkuistics Pty Ltd
Adelaide, South Australia


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Re: Such a pretty... (+ BUG)

Bill Schwab
Antony,

> > I wouldn't go as far as to say "no" advantage;
>
> It's not that the system window has no advantage - far from it, I keep
> it open and uncovered. It's that there is no benefit gained by paying
> the cost of using more screen real estate for the large icons.
>
> I know it's easy to scale the icons to any size using Flipper and the
> iconExtent aspect (IIRC), so my point is about the default size.

I hadn't seen that one - I'll give it a look.  Just setting the view mode
#largeIcons helped.


> > However, I'm really enjoying my browser filter goodie
>
> Yes, but I really wish it would remember the filters rather than making
> me do an 'open' each time.

Are you asking for it to load the file it used most recently, or is there
something missing even when it's "just sitting there"?  I leave it open in
the upper right corner ofthe screen, and if it gets covered, the icon is
easy to find on the task bar.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Chris Uppal-3
In reply to this post by Bill Schwab
Bill,

> FWIW, I find the deprecated icon to be much less obvious; that little
orange
> thing was very helpful.

I think the presentation could be more agressive too.  I doubt whether I'd
ever have noticed it if you and Antony hadn't mentioned it here.  (Probably
a function, in part, of the color response of this laptop.  I find the
default fade setting almost inperceptable too.)

Also, like you, I don't really like the new icons.  I even started getting a
headache too (and I normally average about one headache every three or four
years, so I don't think it was coincidence...;-).  I've switched to
#largeIcons mode and turned off the #isTrackSelect in the system folder.
That helps, especially as I always have it open on the "additional tools"
sub-folder where most of the inhabitants have pre-XP icons.

I think we'll just have to live with iconery that is better suited to XP,
though.  It's a pity, but OA obviously have to track MS on this kind of
thing; so if M$ thinks the world is better off with overlarge, gaudy,
blurry, images then that's what OA have to supply.

All personal opinion, of course.  I definitely don't expect everyone to
agree with me.  But I think XP looks hellish, I'm glad I don't (yet) have to
use it.

> Bill

    -- chris


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Re: Such a pretty... (+ BUG)

Antony Blakey-4
In reply to this post by Bill Schwab
Bill Schwab wrote:

>>>However, I'm really enjoying my browser filter goodie
>>
>>Yes, but I really wish it would remember the filters rather than making
>>me do an 'open' each time.
>
>
> Are you asking for it to load the file it used most recently, or is there
> something missing even when it's "just sitting there"?  I leave it open in
> the upper right corner ofthe screen, and if it gets covered, the icon is
> easy to find on the task bar.

When I restart the image I have to reload the filters. I must admit that
I'm finding the SystemCHB does what I want for now - I'll use the
browser filter for non-package based filtering (which is what I
initially used it for).

-------------------------
Antony Blakey
mailto:[hidden email]
Linkuistics Pty Ltd
Adelaide, South Australia


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

rush
In reply to this post by Jeffrey Odell-2
Hi,

now that you have brought aesthetics, there is one thing I wanted to mention
before, but I thought it is not that important. I run the dolphin in
resolution 1280x1024 on 17inch monitor. I use the "large font setting" and
dolphin icons look strange in this enviroment (it seems as 16x icons gets
enlarged with all funny looking endges). I know that "large font" seting is
not strictly "kosher" (or they were not at some point in time?), but it is a
setting one can make, and one very usable on modern 17inch monitors.

Now, I really do not find this very important, and I can live with it, but
I thought I could mention it.

Davorin Rusevljan


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Re: Such a pretty... (+ BUG)

Bill Schwab
In reply to this post by Antony Blakey-4
Antony,

> > Are you asking for it to load the file it used most recently, or is
there
> > something missing even when it's "just sitting there"?  I leave it open
in
> > the upper right corner ofthe screen, and if it gets covered, the icon is
> > easy to find on the task bar.
>
> When I restart the image I have to reload the filters.

I'm stumped :)   By "restart" do you mean build from a clean image?  If so,
you can use a doIt chunk to load the file.you want.  If it's other than
that, are you getting any error messages?  I'm not aware of a problem, and I
make a LOT of use of it.


> I must admit that
> I'm finding the SystemCHB does what I want for now - I'll use the
> browser filter for non-package based filtering (which is what I
> initially used it for).

Any way that it helps is great.  If you can help me understand the problem
you are having, we can try to find a fix.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Andy Bower
In reply to this post by Antony Blakey-4
Antony,

> I tile some aspects of my st desktop with the system folder, my project
> workspace and a transcript down one side, and the rest of the space
> given to overlapping browsers. I think the system window uses up a lot
> of real estate to no advantage. I known that you can use the toolbar
> buttons on each window for most things, but the idea of the system
> folder as a launchpad is less attractive if it uses up too much real
estate.
>
> Even at 1600x1200 the system folder seems too large - at smaller
> resolutions it will dominate for no good reason.

I suggest you run up RC1 against Dolphin 4. You will see that the system
folder sizes are:

557@348 D4
562@356 D5

This means that the new folder with large icons is 5@8 pixels larger. Hardly
a great loss of screen real estate. If this bugs you then use the system
options to select #largeIcons rather than #tiledIcons and you can then
sensibly shrink the window to 455@256 . Go to small icons and you get even
moe space. Good enough?

> I think that adding the dolphin logo to icons that exist with the
> dolphin application is redundant at best and actively deleterious in the
> case of the toolbar icons. Wasting the few pixels you have, on the ball,
> makes the icons less distinct.

The ball is part of Dolphin brand (which up until now has been a bit of a
foreign concept in the Smalltalk world). To us the idea of brand is
important and therefore the ball is important too. You'll find, though, that
the ball in the 16x16 icons and toolbar buttons is now one pixel smaller
than it used to be in D5 or earlier beta, thus saving more space.

Best regards,

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com

---
Visit the Dolphin Smalltalk Wiki Web
http://www.object-arts.com/wiki/html/Dolphin/FrontPage.htm
---


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Andy Bower
In reply to this post by Bill Schwab
Bill,

> > I tile some aspects of my st desktop with the system folder, my project
> > workspace and a transcript down one side, and the rest of the space
> > given to overlapping browsers. I think the system window uses up a lot
> > of real estate to no advantage.
>
> I wouldn't go as far as to say "no" advantage; but, it is too spread out,
> and I have been getting less and less use from it with time as a result.

See my reply to Antony above; if the size of the system folder bugs you then
set #smallIcons and shrink it right down.

Best regards,

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com

---
Visit the Dolphin Smalltalk Wiki Web
http://www.object-arts.com/wiki/html/Dolphin/FrontPage.htm
---


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Re: Such a pretty... (+ BUG)

Andy Bower
In reply to this post by Antony Blakey-4
Antony,

> >>I think the private/public + deprecated idea functions well. And of
> >>course the product is fantastic, but not yet perfect, so...
> >
> > FWIW, I find the deprecated icon to be much less obvious; that little
orange
> > thing was very helpful.
>
> My point there was that deprecation can now be orthogonal to
> public/private. but either I spoke too soon, or there's a bug - the icon
> shown for public deprecated is the private deprecated icon, which makes
> me think that the attributes aren't treated orthogonally, merely that
> the deprecated icon has changed.

There is no need for an icon to represent deprecated private methods. By its
very nature a private method that is deprecated will be removed. The new
deprecated icon is now meant to suggest that a former public method is now
private and will be removed in a future version.

Best regards,

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com

---
Visit the Dolphin Smalltalk Wiki Web
http://www.object-arts.com/wiki/html/Dolphin/FrontPage.htm
---


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Andy Bower
In reply to this post by Chris Uppal-3
Chris,

> Also, like you, I don't really like the new icons.  I even started getting
a
> headache too (and I normally average about one headache every three or
four
> years, so I don't think it was coincidence...;-).

As you're probably aware, these days at Object Arts, expense is no object.
Not only are we proud sponsors of Smalltalk Solutions this year but we have
recently opened a Usability Testing Lab modelled on that of the Seattle
giant. In order to guarantee that the new look and feel would be acceptable
to the majority of our users we projected an image of the new system folder
onto a 56" plasma screen. I personally sat in front of this, staring at the
system folder alone, for 3hrs (which is signifiantly more time, we
estimated, than most users will spend looking at that window in a year). I
was able to report no untoward effects (headaches etc) but I was in need of
a drink following the test (much as I am now after reading the latest swathe
of posts in this newsgroup).

Best regards,

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com

---
Visit the Dolphin Smalltalk Wiki Web
http://www.object-arts.com/wiki/html/Dolphin/FrontPage.htm
---


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Re: Such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl...

Chris Uppal-3
Andy,

> As you're probably aware, these days at Object Arts, expense is no object.
> Not only are we proud sponsors of Smalltalk Solutions this year but we
have
> recently opened a Usability Testing Lab modelled on that of the Seattle
> giant. In order to guarantee that the new look and feel would be
acceptable
> to the majority of our users we projected an image of the new system
folder
> onto a 56" plasma screen. I personally sat in front of this, staring at
the
> system folder alone, for 3hrs (which is signifiantly more time, we
> estimated, than most users will spend looking at that window in a year). I
> was able to report no untoward effects (headaches etc) but I was in need
of
> a drink following the test (much as I am now after reading the latest
swathe
> of posts in this newsgroup).

You are in great form tonight!

I hope you enjoyed the drink.

> Andy Bower

    -- chris


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