Joi Ellis wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Bruce Miller wrote:
>
> > Although I dont have a better solution at hand, IMHO a lot of
> > AWT (& Swing inherits enough of this) represents an opportunity
> > missed.
> >
> > Many of us started out with Java years ago writting Applets ---
> > and discovered there was no access to enough info about the
> > browser to do a decent job (background colors, font size, etc).
> > That's unchanged, and Swing _effectively_ isn't available to
> > "most" browsers.
>
> This is an unfortunate turn the web has taken.
[...]
> HTML works great when the page designer choses to not control everything,
[...]
> When I write code, I don't care where the widgets end up on the panel as
[...]
Just to be sure we're on the same wavelength; that's exactly my concern.
If the applet could adapt to the fonts & colors that the _user_ has
already chosen, it would not only be more accessible, but probably look
better too.
> > And though there are some nice ideas in layout managers,
[...]
> > So it's not surprising that "lazy programmers" take the easy route.
>
> I guess I'm spoiled by JBuilder's designer. I've used most of the
> layout managers and avoided using GridBagLayout because everyone said
> it was "too hard." One day I was bored and decided to play with
> JBuilder's Designer and discovered GridBagLayout is really easy to
> use. Now it's the only layout manager I use.
Hmm, maybe I'll have to refer my collegues that insist on IDE's to
JBuilder.
I'll stick to Emacs :>
GridBagLayout isn't too bad once you get used to it, but it's a big
hurdle
to get started.
> > And finally, it would have been nice if the "Standard Font Set"
> > also had some standard font metrics! Although the situation has
> > improved somewhat, many early JVMs had really bad font metrics,
> > particularly SGI's font heights were completely wrong. Even
> > still, the characteristics of the fonts on different systems can
> > be quite different.
> >
> > Consequently, even when you layout an application "Correctly", it
> > often will look good on one system and lousy on another. Assuming
> > that they (the programmer) is in error, they will then "Tune" it
> > so it looks better on their development platform --- and consequently
> > even worse on others.
>
> I don't follow you. When I test my apps on the three platforms, the
> layout managers always get it right. Nothing looks lousy, and I don't
> do any tuning. Then again, I'm defining "correct" as "how it looks on
> Windows."
I'm defining "correct" to mean layed out such that it still works for
any
(reasonable) size of frame, for any (reasonable) set of fonts/sizes.
But maybe I've got a different scale for "lousy". Of course,
readability
is the first priority. After that, whether the right amount of
information
is present; that important info isn't hidden (eg. scrolled off); all
necessary buttons are visible, etc. Also that different levels of
information
are appropriately emphasized. Here's where you easily get into trouble.
Try to de-emphasize less used info by using a smaller font, and it may
be microscopic on some system. Try to emphasize a heading for a group
of widgets by using a larger font or bold, and it may SCREAM on another
system.
As an early example; I coded an extension to a List window to support a
structured tree of info (pre Swing!). I coded it as generically as
possible,
arranging things dynamically according to available space & font sizes.
On most systems you ended up with a dozen or so lines in the widget --
fine.
On the SGI, with it's broken font metrics, you ended up with maybe 3 and
_lots_ of whitespace --- you couldn't even tell that a tree was being
presented.
It was readable, but, well, lousy! :>
Again, this is an old example, and it's mostly better --- but still
not quite perfect.
[...]
> I think the basic problem is that so many developers are taught bad habits
> with Windows from the very beginning. Neither they nor their instructors
> know better. 20 years ago, programming was taught using time-shared
> mainframes using general-purpose languags. Today it's taught on banks of
> individual Windows machines in VisualBasic.
Well, I've never programmed on windows. I came by my bad habits (&
prejudices)
honestly -- good ole Fortran & Lisp. :>
> Sigh.
>
> --
> Joi Ellis Software Engineer
> Aravox Technologies [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> No matter what we think of Linux versus FreeBSD, etc., the one thing I
> really like about Linux is that it has Microsoft worried. Anything
> that kicks a monopoly in the pants has got to be good for something.
> - Chris Johnson
--
----------------
Bruce Miller
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://math.nist.gov/~BMiller/
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