On Sun, Apr 11, 2004 at 05:31:54PM +0200, Jon Ãslund wrote:
> How long did it take you to come up with the acronym VIS that fits
> perfectly with ION, as in VISION? :)

I don't remember how I originally came up with the name "Ion", but some 
early version of Ion's homepage contained a phrase along the lines of
"Ion, the first part of a vision."

> The first thing I thought of was the GIMP example and how it was
> wrong. I actually find it very easy to use GIMP in Ion. Just put the
> different toolbars in smaller frames and the drawing canvas(es) in
> bigger. This is exactly how I want to layout windows, when working on
> photoshop on a Mac anyway, and here Ion helps me. 

But you need to do special setup for it. I prefer everything in toolbars
around the window, not separate toolboxes. This is yet another reason for
something like Vis. Compare Sodipodi vs. Inkscape. I prefer Inkscape's UI,
although it also has broken dialogs. Those two are essentially the same 
program with some differences in UI and goals.

> While Gnome has locked themselves into the WIMP model (maybe on
> purpose, or maybe that some didn't know of any other) 

Considering the nature of the project, If Microsoft did something like 
Vis, Gnome would clone it in no time.

> What is more important? To make a good interface for one model or to make
> it really accessible for everyone? 

Both are important, and this is where the UI-specific stylesheets of Vis
step in. The point is to be able to generate a reasonable, although not
necessarily perfect, UI for any UI style based on the accessible descriptions
and the generic stylesheet alone. However, anthe UI-specific stylesheet is 
most likely required for more complicated programs to perfect the UI for a 
particular style. Even if a stylesheet is not provided for every UI style, 
the program can function in such an environment and writing a fine-tuning 
stylesheet is much easier than porting the whole UI, or, if the program is
not modularised well, all of it.

-- 
Tuomo

Reply via email to