On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 7:29 PM, Evan Daniel <evanbd at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've said everything I have to say on the specifics: I think FProxy is > in need of an overhaul, I think input from someone who actually knows > how to design UIs would be wonderful, and I see nothing obviously > objectionable in the mockup. If you want detailed comments from me, I > need something clickable. Failing that, give me design documents, and > I can comment on those instead. If it's too early in the process for > that, that's fine; I don't mind waiting while work progresses to that > stage. > > >> I don't think this would be so much of a problem, except it sounds like > >> you > >> expect other people to help write code while telling them you plan to > >> throw out what they've been working on already. > > > > Firstly, all I've done is made a proposal, and defended that proposal, > I'm > > not dictating anything to anyone. > > Perhaps you haven't noticed, or perhaps it's just me, but it's my > impression that everyone around here thinks that what you say goes, > seeing as you're the official head of the project and the one in > charge of the money. Hah, well I don't think I've ever been dictatorial, and decisions are made frequently that I disagree with, by Toad and others. Perhaps Toad can think of examples, but I don't recall ever forcing him to do something he thought was the wrong course of action, just because I officially control the purse strings. > I agree. I think a completely new UI would be wonderful. I think the > best way to do that would be to develop the new UI as a separate > branch, bring it up to parity or near-parity with current FProxy in > functionality, and then switch over. Well that is more or less the plan, except I don't think it needs to be parity, because there is a lot of functionality in fproxy that is mainly for developers and not useful to most users, and I don't think we need to wait for it to be implemented to switch to a UI that is better in every other way. > But, as I'm not the one who will > be writing the code, I really don't object if those who are want to do > it differently (for example, toad's idea of gradually migrating FProxy > to be the new idea). I do disagree with a gradual migration, FProxy is fundamentally flawed for reasons I've already mentioned, and a piecemeal migration will be a lot more work and is likely to have a much worse outcome. Further, neither my wife nor any other designer will be interested in just doing a piecemeal migration. To get the most value out of a designer you need to give them a blank slate. > However, I do think it would be a bad idea to > try to support two different UIs at the same time for the general > community. > I think some degree of parallelization is inevitable. If we wait until the new UI provides every last piece of functionality that fproxy does, it will never happen. > > But if you accept that FProxy has serious and fundamental flaws, then it > > makes perfect sense to replace it with a pre-existing open source web > > framework that has elegantly solved all of these problems. GWT is the > best > > candidate for this I've found. > > GWT may be best, but IMHO the lack of a way to build it cleanly should > be treated as blocking level bug on inclusion. We aren't so desperate > for a way to generate HTML that it makes sense to take a step > backwards on having Freenet be dependent only on Free software. But > we've been down that path before, and afaict your mind is made up. > I must be forgetting something. What is the problem with building GWT? AFAIK, the entire stack is open source. > Also, I think it's quite important that whatever we end up with, it > behave well with js and cookies turned off. Easy to say, not easy to do. This requirement doubles (or worse) the complexity of any new UI. My opinion is that if Google can deploy mass-consumer software that relies on Javascript, then so can we. I don't buy the security argument for not permitting Javascript because we can allow Javascript in the UI without allowing it in pages downloaded from Freenet. If someone feels strongly enough about having a lynx-friendly interface to Freenet then they should work on one (or continue to maintain fproxy), but it shouldn't hold back progress for everyone else. (Some things like > Freetalk login requiring cookies makes sense; I don't see a way to > avoid that. But we should minimize the number of such things where > possible.) I don't think that's a particularly hard requirement, > provided we pay attention to it. (Note that I'm not saying we can't > use them; just that it should degrade well, without losing any > functionality.) > I don't think I can agree with this. You're basically saying that we should double or maybe even triple the complexity of implementing the UI to accomodate a tiny minority of users that, for whatever reason, can't or won't enable Javascript and cookies in their browser. That doesn't make sense. If that constituency wants to implement a "lite" UI for Freenet then they should, but this shouldn't become a requirement that holds back (and may-well kill) any substantive advance in our UI for the rest of us. > You've also laid some criticisms on the general behavior of the > community. I tend to agree with you on those, but in the past when > I've said things about it I was ignored. So I was hoping that you > would be willing to put your leadership role to use in improving the > situation. > Perhaps its a cultural issue, but I see no problem with robust debate, provided that it stays on-topic, is based on facts not ego, and doesn't descend into ad-hominem. If you are aware of specific examples where the project has been hurt by the culture on these lists, then you should bring it to our attention, but I just don't see it. > > I don't think she has any interest in discussing anything other than > > feedback on the proposed redesign. Certainly she has absolutely no > interest > > in getting involved in a meta-debate like this one. I'll try to persuade > > her to chime in, but if you actually had specific questions for her it > may > > help. > > I don't really have any specific questions at present. I won't claim > to know how to run a UI design project, but the ones I've observed and > (peripherally) participated in tended to involve looking for feedback > in a fairly organized way. If there are specific next steps where > you're seeking specific input, I'd be happy to offer it. But, given > only a vague and open-ended prompt, I don't have much to say; I > figured I'd keep quiet while those that have ideas and opinions voice > them. Don't worry, when I have something I think is productive to > add, I'll do so. Well, did you like the original PDF I posted? Do you think its the right direction? Is there anything in it you would have done differently? I'm just getting mixed messages. Some people say "oh, a mock-up is insufficient for us to form an opinion". Others are criticizing me for being dictatorial and moving too fast. Ian. -- Ian Clarke CEO, SenseArray Email: ian at sensearray.com Ph: +1 512 422 3588 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/devl/attachments/20100211/6c0ac6db/attachment.html>
