ViewComposer layout

A few days ago, in a thread not too far from here, I mentioned changing
the orientation of the ViewComposer's hierarchy tree and published
aspect inspector so that they were vertical rather than horizontal.
After the post I had a play and have been using the result off and on
for the last few days.  I would like to suggest to OA that they include
something similar in the shipped image as an alternate VC view.

I've put a screenshot of a maximised [1] VC using the new orientation
(46K jpeg) at http://idb.me.uk/files/vc.jpg

I feel that some of the advantages are ...
    The editing arena is taller and allows more views to be edited at
their preferred size without scrolling.
    The pai list is about 30% bigger.
    The tree view is tall and thin, more like the shape that the
hierarchy tree will be.
    The relative size of the 3 views can be quickly changed (if you want
more hierarchy tree for example) without affecting the view being
edited.

The only disadvantage I've found so far is that when you edit aspects
that use the workspace for options (like those bloody
FramingConstraints) you have a little further to move.  This effect can
be reduced by temporarily enlarging the workspace view so it is nearer
the aspect being edited).

Should anyone want to try it there is a modified vc view in a package
(6K) at
http://idb.me.uk/files/vc.zip

[1] I always tend to work with the VC maximised.  Like the current VC
view the modified view is more difficult to use if the VC is smaller.
--
Ian

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Ian,

> I've put a screenshot of a maximised [1] VC using the new orientation
> (46K jpeg) at http://idb.me.uk/files/vc.jpg

My! what a small screen you've got... ;-)

I like the look of the layout and will probably bend my own VC the next time I
find myself making much use of it.

One thing strikes me as odd, though.  To me it would seem automatic to put the
two tree panes on the right.  I don't really understand why it feels "wrong"
(to me) on the left as you have it.  Maybe it's because I'm right-moused and
like to have the bits of the UI that I touch most often closest "to hand" in
some sense...   Just an idle thought on a pre-Christmas Sunday.

    -- chris

Chris,

> My! what a small screen you've got... ;-)

;-)

> One thing strikes me as odd, though.  To me it would seem automatic
> to put the two tree panes on the right.

I can't say I really thought about it.  I originally tried it on the
left and it "felt" better than at the bottom so I just left it there.
It might have been subconscious I suppose, the other apps that I just
found seem to use the left for such things (OutlookExpress, Windows
Explorer, PictureIt, InternetExplorer with history) as does the Dolphin
PackageBrowser.

It only took two mouse drags so I've just tried it with the tree and
aspects on the right of the screen.  The only obvious advantage is that
the scroll bars are now in the "right" place, which might be better?.
I'll try it for longer and see how it goes.

--
Ian

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I think that suggestion optimizes the non sqare shape of our actual
monitors.

regards,


--
Sebastián Sastre
[hidden email]
www.seaswork.com.ar

"Ian Bartholomew" <[hidden email]> escribió en el mensaje
news:1uKEb.3001$[hidden email]...

Hi all,

One of the few things I really like about the VisualStudio development
systems, is the ability to pick up a toolbox and either have it float or
stick it anywhere you like on your working environment. I tried doing this
in Dolphin, but never really got anywhere.

I would love to see that functionality being implemented in Dolphin, not
only would that make the VC more attractive and usable, we would also be
able to implement that kind of functionality in our own applications.

Ted

Ted,

[re docking views]
> I would love to see that functionality being implemented in Dolphin,
> not only would that make the VC more attractive and usable, we would
> also be able to implement that kind of functionality in our own
> applications.

Hmmm. That _might_ be possible if you could specify positions in the
target view where the floating view could be docked.  You could then
create different view layouts, each one having the floating view docked
in a different place You would also create a new ShellView containing
the floating view.  When this ShellView was placed in one of the docking
positions you could close the floating ShellView and display the
appropriate predocked view.  I've absolutely no idea if that would work
though - it seems a bit too easy :-)

Allowing the floating view to be dynamically docked anywhere is another
kettle of fish.  I'll leave that one to you :-)

If you just want the toolbox visible in the VC (I know your comment was
really more general than that) then it's easy enough to add.  I just
tried adding one at the bottom of the vertical hierarchy/pai VC view I
mentioned the other day and it cluttered up things a bit too much for my
liking.

Ian

Ian,

> > One thing strikes me as odd, though.  To me it would seem automatic
> > to put the two tree panes on the right.
>
> I can't say I really thought about it.  I originally tried it on the
> left and it "felt" better than at the bottom so I just left it there.
> It might have been subconscious I suppose, the other apps that I just
> found seem to use the left for such things (OutlookExpress, Windows
> Explorer, PictureIt, InternetExplorer with history) as does the Dolphin
> PackageBrowser.

Thinking about this a little more, it seems there's quite a strong tendency for
Window's programs to order sub-panes so that "masters" are to the top and left,
and "slaves" to the bottom and right.  That's to say that when the selection
within one pane determine determines the contents of another, the secondary
one is usually below or to the right of the first.  Most of the examples you
mention show that pattern.

It's not universal, though.  E.g. one of the differences between Visual Studio
6 (and before), and the newer .NET versions is that the default position of the
control pane (with its bloody stupid new name) has moved from the left to the
right.  Hmm, maybe that's one reason I dislike it (one among many -- from the
quality of the code-generation, to the UIs colour scheme there are very few
ways in which VS.NET fails to differ from my ideal C/C++ programming
environment).

Not that the matter is of exactly earth-shaking importance...

    -- chris

"Ian Bartholomew" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:1uKEb.3001$[hidden email]...
> A few days ago, in a thread not too far from here, I mentioned changing
> the orientation of the ViewComposer's hierarchy tree and published
> aspect inspector so that they were vertical rather than horizontal.
> After the post I had a play and have been using the result off and on
> for the last few days.  I would like to suggest to OA that they include
> something similar in the shipped image as an alternate VC view.

I'd be happy to include it in PL4 if you wish.

Regards

Blair

"Chris Uppal" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:3fe83302$0$39280$[hidden email]... tendency for
> Window's programs to order sub-panes so that "masters" are to the top and
left,
> and "slaves" to the bottom and right.  That's to say that when the
selection
> within one pane determine determines the contents of another, the
secondary
> one is usually below or to the right of the first.  Most of the examples
you
> mention show that pattern.
>

True, although I wonder if this has more to do with the western convention
of reading from left to right than ergonomics? Personally, as a right handed
individual (and in apparent disagreement with yourself) I prefer selection
trees (whatever) to the right of the detail pane. By happy coincidence (or
is it?) the most used selection pane of a Smalltalk browser, the methods
list, ends up on the right hand side of the window.

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that the convention adopted in Windows of
having the start menu and quick launch toolbar on the left of the system
tray is ergonomically wrong for right-handed users. Relocating the start
menu would be difficult because it would mean the menus popping out
right-to-left, against the left-right convention, but I always drag the
quick launch toolbar over so that it is positioned next to the tray icons
and clock on the right. Since I tend to "park" the mouse towards the bottom
right of the screen (and because the scrollbars and window caption icons are
on the right), I find this means I need to move the mouse less.

> It's not universal, though.  E.g. one of the differences between Visual
Studio
> 6 (and before), and the newer .NET versions is that the default position
of the
> control pane (with its bloody stupid new name) has moved from the left to
the
> right.  Hmm, maybe that's one reason I dislike it (one among many -- from
the
> quality of the code-generation, to the UIs colour scheme there are very
few
> ways in which VS.NET fails to differ from my ideal C/C++ programming
> environment).

As I say, I like that aspect of VS.NET, and of course you can reconfigure a
lot of that stuff. On the other hand I think that VS.NET is coming from the
Delphi/VJ++ stable of IDEs with a concentration on the new .NET languages,
and although it has some useful features, I agree that it is significantly
worse as a C/C++ development environment than its predecessor.

Regards

Blair

Blair,

> I'd be happy to include it in PL4 if you wish.

I think the changed layout (moving the hierarchy and pai to either the
left _or_ the right) definitely improves the VC usability so including
the resource in the image, so that it can be selected as the default
view in the user options, makes a lot of sense.  Whether it is in PL4 is
really up to you though - although my vote would be yes, if only to
obviate the need for me to make the change myself :-).

FWIW, I've even found that with the change the VC is even usable in it's
unmaximised state, something I was never particularly happy doing with
the default layout.

--
Ian

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"Ian Bartholomew" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:bsc6j6$bqgh4$[hidden email]...
OK, well you can try out the proposed new view by installing:

Its very similar to yours except the proportions are marginally different,
and the selection tree and PAI are to the right :-).

http://object-arts.com/Lib/Update/Dolphin/5.1/1466.st

With the patch installed one needs to change User Prefs to set the View
Composer's defaultView to 'Vertical view'.

Any feedback would be welcome so that we can consider it before PL4 is
released some time early in the new year. It is possible we might make this
the default (and that is likely in D6), but that depends on whether it is
generally preferred.

Regards

Blair

Blair,

> Any feedback would be welcome so that we can consider it before PL4 is
> released some time early in the new year. It is possible we might
> make this the default (and that is likely in D6), but that depends on
> whether it is generally preferred.

Thanks, it looks fine to me and I would prefer it as the default (but
then I'm probably biased :-) )

A Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year to all in the Object Arts
Ivory Tower and to all Dolphineers wherever they may be.

Now I really _must_ go and do some Xmas shopping.....

--
Ian

Use the Reply-To address to contact me.
Mail sent to the From address is ignored.

Blair,

> http://object-arts.com/Lib/Update/Dolphin/5.1/1466.st
>
> With the patch installed one needs to change User Prefs to set the View
> Composer's defaultView to 'Vertical view'.
>
> Any feedback would be welcome so that we can consider it before PL4 is
> released some time early in the new year. It is possible we might make
> this the default (and that is likely in D6), but that depends on whether
> it is generally preferred.

Well, FWIW, *I* like it and have made it my default.   Thank you.

I have bumped-up the balance between the two "halves" of the screen to a 1-1
ratio (from 7-3) -- that seems to work better for the typical shape of the UIs
I create (I like 'em tall and thin ;-)

BTW, I had some difficulty downloading from that URL.  The server itself seems
to have been out of action for a few days (enjoying its own Christmas break as
you yourselves are, I trust), but it also seems to be misconfigured for HTTP
1.1 "keep-alives".

I can download the URL fine using most tools, but doing a "download target"
from within Outlook Express seems to use a HTTP 1.1 session with keep-alives
requested (which is a middling unusual configuration for a web browser to use),
the effect seems to be that your server tells my client that there are around
40K bytes to download, but then only sends about 30K and then just stops, it
doesn't close the connection and so my client hangs waiting for the promised
extra 10K.  Eventually the TCP/IP session times out and the client comes back
to life.   Presumably the server is miscoded not to flush data to the TCP/IP
stream when it has finished sending in the case when it's not going to close
the session immediately.

It's no big deal (though it's, um, "interesting" that two MS products can't
talk a common protocol like HTTP to each other), I managed to get the data in a
different way with no problem.

    -- chris

Blair,

I wouldn't know, though it seems plausible to me.  OTOH, perhaps wasn't  a
*strong* influence -- it seems to me that that sort of (fairly subtle) aspect
of UI design is highly sensitive to how consistently it is applied.  It might
be that there is no great advantage in going top-left to bottom-right, but it
is important that *some* rule is applied fairly consistently, and the (western)
reading order just broke the tie.


> Personally, as a right
> handed individual (and in apparent disagreement with yourself) I prefer
> selection trees (whatever) to the right of the detail pane. By happy
> coincidence (or is it?) the most used selection pane of a Smalltalk
> browser, the methods list, ends up on the right hand side of the window.

I think I prefer the ones I use most closest to my mouse (right) hand.  The
"happy accident" for me is that the most used panes tend to be the ones that
are subordinate in the master-slave relationship I mentioned, so it seems that
your preference and mine tend to coincide in practise.  :-)


> I'm no expert, but it seems to me that the convention adopted in Windows
> of having the start menu and quick launch toolbar on the left of the
> system tray is ergonomically wrong for right-handed users.

Interesting point.   Come to that, there's something fishy about the way that
the ordinary window menus are clustered to the left of the screen, when the
scrollbars are on the right -- it pretty much guarantees an inordinate amount
of mouse-waving.

Not that I'm ever likely to have the courage to ship a UI with the menus to the
right...

    -- chris

Chris, Blair,

> Interesting point.   Come to that, there's something fishy about the way
that
> the ordinary window menus are clustered to the left of the screen, when
the
> scrollbars are on the right -- it pretty much guarantees an inordinate
amount
> of mouse-waving.
>
> Not that I'm ever likely to have the courage to ship a UI with the menus
to the
> right...

Nor would I, but I find it interesting that the PARC Smaltalk systems all
had their scrollbars on the left :)

Related, the up and down arrows really should be adjacent.  Some X window
managers get it right, as did/does(??) NeXT.  Any others?

Have a good one,

Bill

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

Bill,

> Nor would I, but I find it interesting that the PARC Smaltalk systems all
> had their scrollbars on the left :)

That would be where Squeak got it from then.  I never liked that
particularly -- it puts the scrollbars into the "busiest" part of the screen --
right next to the left-aligned text.

> Related, the up and down arrows really should be adjacent.  Some X window
> managers get it right, as did/does(??) NeXT.  Any others?

IIRC (which is not too likely) the Amiga had adjacent up/down widgets.  Really,
the Windows scrollbars are a terrible design.  I'd forgotten just how much I
hated them when I was forced to start using Windows, and how long it took me to
adapt.  E.g. the *whole point* of a scrollbar is that it gives a proportional
representation of position, so what is the stupidest possible thing for
clicking in the bar itself to mean -- right, "page up/down"!*

    -- chris

[*]  Well, not the stupidest *possible*, but if the day should come when
exaggeration were disallowed in News postings....