UI Enhancements

Some expeimental stuff on SqueakSource, version 254.

Was about time for a "Watery" theme, given Squeak's roots...
Work in progress, is useable (given the framework). Will do a bit at a time,
given spare time.

Feedback always appreciated.

Gary

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Given a "standard" canned response from Flickr for my upload problems I've
hit my webspace directly. Forgotten how painful "command-line" ftp is (not
needed a usefult ftp client for a while).

Piccy of the "Watery" theme here:
http://www.gazzaguru2.btinternet.co.uk/Watery.png


...

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Gary,

In my custom theme of Watery I change the tree icons to being that of
StandardSqueak, small change, but I think it looks better. Kudos to you,
excellent work as always.

Travis

Gary Chambers wrote:
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Gary,

Impressive!  The screenshot reminds me of the menu bar.  A friend of
mine recently bought a mac laptop, and it took some real adjustment for
me to look at the menu.  That integration is one area where the
native-or-bust crowd might actually have a point???  It is a minor point
in my book, as my focus is on a Windows-Linux escape system.  You are
doing wonders for the look and feel of Squeak.  THANKS!!!!

Re Watery, I think I would like it more if it were not so uniformly
bright.  You are probably just emulating the real thing, but some darker
tones might cut down on eye strain?????

Have we reached any consensus on MVP?  I _think_ it can be done with
morphs serving as views to start, and then break off into other
directions if we chose, or find it necessary.

Have any Monticello experts put together a script to load the latest
stuff?   I am almost remembering how to do so, but a blob of text in a
workspace is calling me.  I will probably end up taking a shot at it,
but would not be too proud to use an existing script if available.

Speaking of UI and Monticello, I am bothered by Monticello's download
behavior.  On selection, it begins lengthy downloads but gives no
feedback or opportunity to cancel.  What do you think?  One of my
favorite guidelines is "never punish the user."  I wish I could say I
thought of it.

Bill



Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: [hidden email]
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029

>>> [hidden email] 10/31/07 6:54 PM >>>

Given a "standard" canned response from Flickr for my upload problems
I've
hit my webspace directly. Forgotten how painful "command-line" ftp is
(not
needed a usefult ftp client for a while).

Piccy of the "Watery" theme here:
http://www.gazzaguru2.btinternet.co.uk/Watery.png


...

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Indeed, that'd be pretty close to the mac... :-)
I'll do some "nearly-look-alikes" when I get time...
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Thanks for the feedback (was hoping for more negative-feedback,
ironically!).
Well, it has been a bit barren on the UI list recently... apparently no
concensus on the "big" changes.

Until enough feedback is available to me I'll not update (or (upgrade, as
Damien puts it) the Universe. From my point of view, the Universe release
should be expected to be geneally stable, rather than experimental.

As for eye-strain, subclassing and posting alternate themes should be
relatively simple, given the (evolving) framework... I was hoping for others
to post packages that can be optionally loaded by the end-user. The Watery
theme is rather more "fixed colour" based than the others, deliberately. It
would be simple to subclass with a different default window/button/scrollbar
colour to tone it down (don't forget to give a different name on the
class-side).

MC treats the package download as a single chunk, AFAICT... no intermediate
progress, therefore. Widgets is getting (has always been) quite a large
change.

As for MC downloasds, maybe with MC 1.5 Keith and I can work on that...
cancelling the download may be possible, integration (atomically) may not.

Gary, thanks for all of your support.



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On 31-Oct-07, at 8:08 PM, Gary Chambers wrote:

>
> Indeed, that'd be pretty close to the mac... :-)
There's already a Sophie derived facility for dealing with host menus  
on the Mac. John, enlighten the people if you would...


tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: CSF: Charge to NSF


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On 11/1/07, Bill Schwab <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Gary,
>
> Have we reached any consensus on MVP?  I _think_ it can be done with
> morphs serving as views to start, and then break off into other
> directions if we chose, or find it necessary.

I'm not sure.  My vote is obviously for MVP.  But who be able to work
on this?  My plate is full for some time, and as you mentioned, you
can't work directly on it.
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On 11/1/07, Jason Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
I meant to add:  I don't see any problem using Morphic for the view.
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Gary,

Here is some of my feedback on the Watery theme:

1) Tree icons look better by changing the theme to use StandardSqueak,
but could be made to look more like Aqua
2) Radio and Checkbox controls are a little too dark when checked, for
me they don't appear to blend well with the rest of the theme
3) TaskListMorph - icons in the TaskbarMorph are very bright with
shadows through the horizontal center, it makes the labels very hard to
read.

Other comments in general:

1) Having theme enabled TaskbarMorphs would be nice, I tend to use
images for desktop backgrounds and make the taskbar transparent - it
looks better to me and gives more visible screen space when not a lot of
windows are minimized (I run on an X61 Thinkpad).

2) Having theme enabled Flaps would be nice, I tend to customize these
too, making them solidTab and transparent or very translucent with pop
out on drag.

I think these two changes could have a large impact on the overall look
of existing themes and more to come. On the feel side of things, I have
some hacks around using 'sticky' menus so they wont attach to the hand -
but its more of a hack. Oh, theme enabled menus would be excellent, but
there is lots of refactoring to be done in this area and it isn't very
trivial.

All in all, awesome work Gary.

Travis

Gary Chambers wrote:
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Jason,

It is true that I would be a better guide than coder, because I know too
much about Dolphin to write anything separate from it.  Another
possibility might be for me to code something for others to recode with
help from me.  IIRC, there are processes for doing this, so some digging
is in order.

Note that if the Dolphin buyout succeeds, then it's not a problem.

Bill





Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: [hidden email]
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029

>>> [hidden email] 11/01/07 12:37 AM >>>
On 11/1/07, Bill Schwab <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Gary,
>
> Have we reached any consensus on MVP?  I _think_ it can be done with
> morphs serving as views to start, and then break off into other
> directions if we chose, or find it necessary.

I'm not sure.  My vote is obviously for MVP.  But who be able to work
on this?  My plate is full for some time, and as you mentioned, you
can't work directly on it.
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Jason,

I suspect we should try to separate from morphic in the future, but not
for a first pass.  Let us know if you think of any problems.

Is there any interest in running on top of Pavel's minimal morphic
image?  Whatever you guys want to do is fine.  I am looking to Pavel as
a likely source of cleaner images, but there is no rush.

Bill




Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: [hidden email]
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029

>>> [hidden email] 11/01/07 12:37 AM >>>
On 11/1/07, Jason Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
I meant to add:  I don't see any problem using Morphic for the view.
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Aye... will have a go. The Flaps may be annoying though (font changes tend
to reset them)...

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On 11/1/07, Bill Schwab <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Note that if the Dolphin buyout succeeds, then it's not a problem.

Is there a place to look at status of this?  If not, do you know close
it is to succeeding?
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On 11/1/07, Bill Schwab <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I suspect we should try to separate from morphic in the future, but not
> for a first pass.  Let us know if you think of any problems.

Well, I certainly have my concerns about Morphic [1], but if there was
a way to make it more Smalltalk'ish, then maybe it would be ok.  How
many ways are there to make a view?  I certainly don't want to go the
"generating code" route of nastiness of c# and friends.

How is Interface Builder on Mac?  I read today that it is a GUI
builder with "no peers".  I also read that it does it's work by
letting the user build the GUI then "freezing" objects so that they
are ready on startup....... ;-)


[1]  To me, from the little bit I have gleaned from digging around the
image, it just feels like a bolt on.  It looked like it was really
nice in Self, but more hackish in Smalltalk.
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Jason,

I am not sure I would grant Morphic that lofty label of "hack" ;)  That
said, free, portable and Smalltalk in one sentence is hard to overlook.
My main question is to see if we would get hurt by starting with "found"
views rather than building an abstraction from the ground up.  There's
an idea: anybody want to tell us what a view should do?

I hestitate to mention it, because it might distract from MVP, but we
might want to look at Whitewater's Object Windows specification.  I am
not certain of the legal status, but it was a pretty good abstraction,
IIRC.  With that said, if I end up using Squeak for more than casual
tasks, there WILL be an MVP framework  I doubt one I would write could
be open (too many Dolphin entanglements), but I note that I perhaps
could write one and become the source side of a clean-room
implementation.

Just some random thoughts.  I will have to approach this efficiently,
seeking the most load on Squeak for the least work.  If it is going to
fall short, I owe it to all parties to discover that quickly.

Bill




Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: [hidden email]
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029


>>> [hidden email] 11/1/2007 3:02 PM >>>
On 11/1/07, Bill Schwab <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I suspect we should try to separate from morphic in the future, but
not
> for a first pass.  Let us know if you think of any problems.

Well, I certainly have my concerns about Morphic [1], but if there was
a way to make it more Smalltalk'ish, then maybe it would be ok.  How
many ways are there to make a view?  I certainly don't want to go the
"generating code" route of nastiness of c# and friends.

How is Interface Builder on Mac?  I read today that it is a GUI
builder with "no peers".  I also read that it does it's work by
letting the user build the GUI then "freezing" objects so that they
are ready on startup....... ;-)


[1]  To me, from the little bit I have gleaned from digging around the
image, it just feels like a bolt on.  It looked like it was really
nice in Self, but more hackish in Smalltalk.
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Jason,

You can join the Dolphin Shelter movement.  To be blunt, I am not
encouraged by the financial will demonstrated to date.  I would like to
think that would-be contributors are holding back in the hopes that tens
and twenties will fly in via Pay Pal and a thermometer on a web site.  I
seriously hope they are correct, but very much doubt it.  IMHO, we
should be seeking around 50 people willing to shell out $5k or more to
have "Dolphin for Life".

Please join.  Some new energy might be just what is needed.

Bill





Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: [hidden email]
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029


>>> [hidden email] 11/1/2007 2:57 PM >>>
On 11/1/07, Bill Schwab <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Note that if the Dolphin buyout succeeds, then it's not a problem.

Is there a place to look at status of this?  If not, do you know close
it is to succeeding?
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