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

[Nicola Pero]

Thomas, thanks for your comments.

Personal suggestion: just wait quite some more time before clicking that
'Send' button, never rush to it - if you express your points more
logically and calmly you can also be more convincing. ;-)


> Once again, this is programmer wisdom solving a problem that doesn't need to 
> be
> solved. WE HAVE COMPATIBILITY AT THE API LEVEL. Why must we try to describe
> interfaces for TWO DIFFERENT platforms that have TWO DIFFERENT user interface
> design principles, using the SAME mark-up? 

One reason why this can work is that GNUstep and Apple Mac OS X have very
similar user interfaces (coming from the same ancestor, NeXTStep).  It can
be a bit more of a problem with Windows, I guess.


> Let me drive this point home even further:
> 
> RENAISSANCE HAS TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE TWO DIFFERENT MENU LAYOUTS!

Yes - I want applications to look good and native, so if the only easy way
(for now) is to have two separate .gsmarkup files, I'm suggesting that
way.  Menus are so different in layout, positioning and names of items.

'looking good and native' is very important.

My point is that there is a single menu in an application ... and its
markup code can easily be 'copied' from existing templates/applications
... while there are many windows.

Menus might require separate .gsmarkup files, but windows don't.  And
windows are the most 'unique/customized' part of the application.

I suppose I really need to write some new portable-menu stuff which
automatically adapts the menu structure for different platforms, as this
seems a common complaint.



> I would like to close as saying that as a trained visual designer, I see the
> current direction that Renaissance is heading as far as visual layout is
> concerned is disturbing. I moved away from other toolkits for their brain-dead
> approach to box based layout. I moved to GNUstep and Gorm for its emphasis on
> visual correctness in UI layout. I will continue to use Gorm for my UI needs, 
> I will NOT use Renaissance. 

Ok - thanks for your comments.

Yes - Renaissance is merging ideas (mostly boxes and autolayout) from
other toolkits/visual editors.

If you feel like there is something I could do to make you at least a bit
more happy with Renaissance let me know. :-)

As far as I could understand, I think you'd appreciate if I/we
tested/implemented careful support for non-autolayout sizing and
positioning of widgets ?  and support for it in the future Renaissance GUI
editor ?

You can still go on using the standard Gorm for your interfaces if you so
wish - I can assure you that support for .gorm formats will remain in the
gui library - there is *no* reason to remove it (I'll defend it myself if
needed :-) and in Gorm (that's up to the Gorm maintainers, but they seem
to be definitely for supporting the .gorm format forever, and I agree with
them - there is very rarely a good reason to drop useful stuff which
works).