Re: Menu (Was: Re: Unimplemented AppKit classes)

[Stefan Urbanek]

On 2003-01-23 13:29:46 +0100 Pete French <pete@twisted.org.uk> wrote:

> > Yes, it is possible to write and then play ... Have you ever tried
>
> Umm, yes - it sounded horrible :-)

:)

> > See my previous comments.
>
> Its a difference in philosophy - see also LaTeX vs Word, which is
> a far better analogy. Interface Builder just encourages people to put
> thought into where precisely the objects should go... when it is the
> relationship of those obejcst to each other which is actually important.

Yes, you place the objects to make the UI usable to the user... (read later)

> Obviosuly I dont advocate writing an interface wiuthout seeing what it
> looks like, that would be ridiculous. But is the dragging and shuffling of
> items graphicly that I think is a misatke - because most of the time
> that isnt theproblem you are truying to fix. If you want all yoru text
> fields left aligned then the solution is to represent that cocnept as such
> in the file- not to shuuflle them all over so they happen to line up
> visually ? Thats completely the antithesis of object orientated programming.

... then you tell to the 'graphical editor' what is the relationship between 
those objects and how they should change their position and size according to 
their contents. I do not see the problem of 'specifying that in the file', only 
that Gorm cannot do that *at this time*. It can be solved by adding some 
information about object placement and relationships into gorm file and apply 
it at the time of loading.

If this is not yet implemented in Gorm, it does not mean, that the idea of 
visual editing is bad.

> Shifting to using Renaissance is the same sort of shift as going from
> a Word processor to using LaTeX. But when you are usedto thinkin about
> the contnet rather than the appearance it is a lot faster... and there
> are big wins in terms of portability; which is where we came in - the
> unportability of IB / Gorm files.
I am not going to judge what is better, if word processor or latex, because it 
really depends on the work you want to do. Anyway, tex is more desktop 
publishing system, and WP is just that what the name says - a word processor. 
Two noncomparable applications. But latex is just a way/language of describing 
documents. For sure I can bet with you, that with some TeX visual editor you 
can get better results... Tex and Renaissance are just languages.

Moreover, you have to take care about appearance and usability more than the 
contents when you are designing user interface.

For the portability see my previous comment about keyed archiving and readable 
file.

> What you really want is a graphical editor for Renaissance files which
> allows visuallayout, but using the Renaissance objecst to do it. Then
> thats the perfect soution I feel for both parties.

Or take it from other point of view ... I want a way of describing position and 
size relationshps between objects in Gorm :)

Stefan