[squeak-dev] presentations, projects, tabbed interfaces, and paper as a UI metaphor

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Quick summary of a long email: I have a couple of months free, which I
am thinking of spending writing or helping write some classes that let
me treat Squeak as smart paper.  To me, this seems related to BookMorph
and its subclasses and rewrites, how Projects are treated, and how
people give presentations using Squeak.  Right now, I am looking for
other people who care about this idea or have requirements that should
affect the solution, related code that already exists, and
collaborators.  I don't have set requirements or design notes yet but
will send them here for review when I (hopefully we by then) do.

Several things have been bouncing around in my head lately:
- - I recently resumed work on an application with a tabbed interface
which I wrote a couple of years ago.  Back then, I rewrote a subset of
BookMorph and TabbedPalette to support this since they weren't doing
what I wanted and were too crufty for my refactoring skills at the time,
but lately I've been thinking about Ned Konz' exhortation to extend
others' existing packages vs. write new ones from scratch.
- - Also a few years ago, I gave a presentation of an early version of
this tool using a StackMorph.  It was frustrating to set up despite the
very useful tutorial, and very embarrassing when the floating controls
disappeared on the second slide, so I couldn't advance to my demo.  I
see a couple of new options on SqueakMap (one of which is also a
BookMorph rewrite) now.
- - I've been using OneNote on my Tablet PC, which is a neat concept and
is better than the other alternatives I've tried, but doesn't actually
do everything I want (plus it's giving in to the Man).
- - My computer is not yet as useful to me as a piece of paper, yet it
could be so much more!

So, I took a deep look at BookMorph (and a shallow look at its rewrites,
other presentation software, and the Projects stuff).  It seems clunky
in places, yes, but there are several really excellent concepts buried
in there:
- - A page/slide/project.  That is, a laid out collection of morphs and
behavior that you want to look at/experience together.
- - Conscious navigation between pages, including transition effects and
sounds.
- - Different interfaces for this inter-page navigation: thumbnails, tabs,
button controls.
- - Navigation on a page: zoom, scroll.
- - Templates for pages/slides.  That is, a similar layout for several
pages, with different data in each.
- - Nested pages.

I'd like to see one, consistent underlying library that uses these
concepts to support presentations, notebooks, tabbed interfaces,
HyperCard-like stacks, and projects.  I want to be able to easily create
presentations and interfaces that work smoothly and that I really like,
or at least that nobody has to gripe about.

Here's my plan:
- - Identify related existing code.
- - Identify potential users, opinionated folks :) & collaborators.
- - Write up some requirements & design notes, and have whoever cares look
them over.
- - Refactor, implement or whatever based on the design notes.

Existing code I know of so far:
- - BookMorph, its subclasses & friends
- - SlideshowMorph on SqueakMap (with tests, w00t!)
- - Slide Auditor on SqueakMap
- - Spiral on SqueakMap
- - InternalThreadNavigationMorph & other stuff in MorphicExtras-Navigation
- - Projects & World-related stuff

If I missed your code, I'm sorry.  Please let me know.  If you haven't
released it yet, I would be very grateful if you were willing to do so,
or send me a copy of your working notes/current code/draft.

Potential users:
- - Folks giving presentations.  Based on searches of SqueakMap,
conversations about presentation software on squeak-dev, code authors
and general scuttlebutt, this includes Stephane Ducasse, Joshua Fein,
Bob Arning, Ned Konz, Craig Latta, Lex Spoon, Andreas Raab, and Alan Kay.
- - OneNote users.  Dunno who this includes beyond me and Ron Teitelbaum
but I'm sure there are more of us out there.
- - Folks writing tabbed or other page-like interfaces.  So far this
includes at least me and Cees de Groot.
- - Possibly, all Squeak users if the projects & world stuff is really
part of this.  Looking at the Project stuff might be a second step. What
do you think?
- - Did I miss anybody in the above categories?  Sorry, and please let me
know if so.
- - Do any other uses leap to your mind?

I'll start on the requirements by listing what the existing code seems
to be trying to accomplish.  If you have requirements beyond this,
especially if you are one of the people listed (or who I should have
listed) above, please holler.

Thanks for listening, if you made it this far, and I'd love to hear your
thoughts.

Brenda
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFIZoSpjIInAF656BkRAk2tAKCR0EkZ7mcCLRbIVfw7diNCDniAegCgpUHS
zKSLmhBqlPpWawDYWvyjf1k=
=kvNo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Brenda a écrit :
> Existing code I know of so far:
> - - BookMorph, its subclasses & friends
> - - SlideshowMorph on SqueakMap (with tests, w00t!)
> - - Slide Auditor on SqueakMap
> - - Spiral on SqueakMap
> - - InternalThreadNavigationMorph & other stuff in MorphicExtras-Navigation
> - - Projects & World-related stuff
>
> If I missed your code, I'm sorry.  Please let me know.  

in muO there is MGraphBookMorph which has
tabs and more generally is an attempt to improve BookMorph in some of
the directions you described.

there is a screenshot here: http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/squeak/sqgeo.htm

I can send you a custom image with some examples if you want.


regards,

Stef

Sophie?

--
Sean McGrath
[hidden email]

Really, really, look at the Sophie code. It does a lot of good stuff  
with text and images and annotating and notes and stuff. It's  
completely free (insofar as I understand that ) and the authors are  
available online.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
"How many Kzin does it take to change a lightbulb?" "None. You can  
scream and leap in the dark."

Hello Brenda,

B> Quick summary of a long email: I have a couple of months free, which I
B> am thinking of spending writing or helping write some classes that let
B> me treat Squeak as smart paper.  To me, this seems related to BookMorph
B> and its subclasses and rewrites, how Projects are treated, and how
B> people give presentations using Squeak.

I use a Squeak on an USB Stick for smart paper. Most people have a
computer running, so why find a place for my laptop and wait till it
starts. I use projects not BookMorphs.

Sometimes it's days when I don't program a single line and my visual
memory helps me to start quickly if I'm coming back to a familiar
place. So a development image also quickly collects lots of projects
with visual sketches, documentation, textual sketches or arrangements
of Browsers and other dev tools.

Whatever you decide to do please consider:

- a linear structure is not enough (maybe it is for presentations).

- it is helpful to quickly move or copy complex content between
arbitrary pages or projects. BookMorph is better than projects in this
regard. MindManager is very good at this (due to its fixed tree
structure). Hey I should try the trashcan for this purpose.

- move content between images, at least of the same version.

- many ways to navigate the structure, a World full of projects is
nice up to 20, less on smaller displays. Maybe BookMorphs sort pages
but auto scaling and page expanding on mouse over could help.

- a quick (visual) navigation should be at hand anywhere, indented
lists (like jump to project) are not agood solution. I think it should
be full screen and maybe semi transparent.

- search capabilities, text, Objects of class X on which pages.

- type in the air like MathMorphs and then decide what it shall be.

- draw in the air to get lineMorphs

All imho. Gave me something to think about.

Cheers,

Herbert                                        

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 12:48 PM, Herbert König <[hidden email]> wrote: Those are great ideas. I started on a similar idea. I wanted to create
a portfolio of multimedia objects and started with the OneNote idea. I
didn't like the way it was organized (I like something like
www.thebrain.com), but I like it that you can easily cut and paste
anything on a page (like from the web), put links anywhere to call a
web browser or a link to a file. I especially lie that you can click
the page and a text object would appear to edit as the default. I
added a subclass of bookmorph and changed how it acted to be more like
OneNote.

I also thought it'd be great to be able to share portfolios with other
people via internet. Not necessarily send them, but to be able to go
to a "Portfolio Browser" to search for other shared portfolios and
include them in an appropriate portfolio of my own. The thought is to
build up a knowledge base of a certain topic. You don't have
everything, but it'd be nice to include clips from the web, links from
the web, and other portfolio's to your own. .


--
Brad Fuller
www.bradfuller.com

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Y'all totally rule.  I'll take a look at MGraphBookMorph, Sophie,
MindManager, and TheBrain in addition to my other list, and fold in
those requirements.  :)

Brenda
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFIbEFqjIInAF656BkRAurGAKCpH/RHwwtYMSHDOLBmO+z1KQULfQCdFLkc
F4vfz7VDM5cF07oUvMFCLKM=
=FQCu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Here're some interesting older Sophie demo videos:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag59IDi3dgQ>
<http://www.geeksrus.com/movies/sophieonmacwindows.mov>

And the tutorials page
<http://sophieproject.org/tutorials>

Ken G. Brown

brenda-18 wrote

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Y'all totally rule.  I'll take a look at MGraphBookMorph, Sophie,
MindManager, and TheBrain in addition to my other list, and fold in
those requirements.  :)

Brenda
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFIbEFqjIInAF656BkRAurGAKCpH/RHwwtYMSHDOLBmO+z1KQULfQCdFLkc
F4vfz7VDM5cF07oUvMFCLKM=
=FQCu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

El 7/2/08 4:48 PM, "Herbert König" <[hidden email]> escribió:

> - type in the air like MathMorphs and then decide what it shall be.
You know Milan Zimermann and me port the MorphicWrappers and MathMorphs  to
modern Squeak some time ago ?
Here the info http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6050

Or if you brave enough could have all in SqueakLightII
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6056

In a Workspace,

   
    | loader |
    loader _ CodeLoader new.
    loader baseURL: 'http://www.squeaksource.com/MathMorphsRevival/'.
    loader loadSourceFiles: #('MorphicWrappers-edc.3.mcz'
'Functions-mz.1.mcz');installSourceFiles.
    loader baseURL: 'http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/uploads/6050/'.
     loader loadSegments: #('LinearAlgebraI.morph' 'ModularIntegers.morph').
        loader installSegments.

And in the Inpectors of the loaded morphs do self openInWorld.

All talks about objects , but delivers ascii files.
I wish change this and put .morph, .pr ,.sqz and .obz objects in swiki and
in ftp for image could load.
And also coming from others Squeak, with some manual work.

Edgar

Hi Edgar,

EJDC> You know Milan Zimermann and me port the MorphicWrappers and MathMorphs  to
EJDC> modern Squeak some time ago ?

I know, thanks for the work, that's why I had it present enough to
point to it.

The thought was that with pencil and paper you never have to call up a
menu to put a text or a line on the paper :-))

So we can pilfer the mechanism and the idea from MathMorphs but for
this we don't need MathMorphs. Actually MathMorphs is the better
pencil and paper Brenda was talking about but only in a special
context.

Maybe I'm wrong, and MathMorphs will also work for text. I already
downloaded your SqueakLight2 and will give it a try.

Cheers,

Herbert