I think the essential idea of Vis, that of custom generated interfaces, would allow for much needed experimentation in computer interface design.
Do you think Vis could possibly be shoehorned into http://wxwidgets.org, or perhaps the developers of wxwidgets could be convinced to adopt the Vis architecture? This would help to lessen the development time needed to create gui modules for gtk, qt, windows, etc. Gnome, KDE, Windows, and OS X are in my opinion converging on some type of mutated desktop metaphor placed in stone by the first macintosh. There are still innovations in user interface design taking place within that metaphor. But these innovations are in part kludges over bad original design, Apple's expose for example. Yet even with this convergence few applications are written to be crossplatform, by utilizing something like wxwidegets. Bearing all this in mind do you think Vis would ever have a chance of getting a foothold in the developer community? The notion of user configured interfaces I do not find compelling because the configuration burden placed on the individual is too great. Also I think collaboration and user testing on interfaces is very helpful. For instance I would really like to see some standard key bindings for Ion developed by the community, e.g. Vi, Emacs, Joe [for Tumo], Windows, Mac OS X. Also the uniformity of some type of standard allows for easier adoption of new applications by users. I am always reticent to proselytize for Ion because I can't easily tell someone how to begin using ion when I have my own personal bastardized vi like bindings. With this in mind perhaps development would be better focused on a gui library on the same level as gtk or qt designed for expert interfaces. This library could be used with existing libraries such mozilla's gecko engine to build new expert applications. -Jesse -- The film is the creative equivalent of waking up naked in a puddle of cheap wine and vomit. -- Nathan Rabin on the film Twisted
