If there is a group UI Design Group formed please let me know, I would love to be one of the people in the group.
Thanks Gary Glasscock Associate Editor ACM Crossroads Magazine http://www.acm.org/crossroads On Wed, 2003-07-23 at 01:58, Steve Herrick wrote: > Craig Ringer wrote: > > Hi folks > > > > I'm a relative newbie on the list, supporting a network of Mac Quark > > boxes at work. I thought I'd throw in my 2c... > > At last! A response! :) > > >> When I say improved, I mean that buttons and commands should be where > >> you'd expect them to be (which some are and some are not, currently), > > > > > > OK, an important question here IMHO: whose expectations? > > Well, that's why I want to form a group - to decide exactly this kind of > issue. Otherwise, I'm stuck making the same complaints over and over. > > What background > > of user are we talking about? I see several important classes: > ... > > Each of these classes of user will have different expectations of the > > interface, to varying degrees. > > Quite so. What I think is that we should set our sights higher - meaning > that we shouldn't seek to copy anyone, but rather come up with an > interface that's easy for anyone to learn. We should value simplicity > and clarity over anything else. The interface should, as they say, just > work. > > > Then again, has it changed in a recent release? I > > could've sworn that issue went away last time I built and tried out > > Scribus. > > Maybe in 1.0. I haven't had the time or the connectivity to try it yet > (which is pretty ironic, considering how excited I was about it). > > > Then again, everything you mention does strike me as very generic DTP > > stuff, or simply logical, rather than 'but this is how XX does it' issues. > > Well, I'm of the school that says copying commercial software is not > what open source is about. Rather, we should pick up good ideas wherever > they happen to come from. > > >> Also, I've had throughts like reducing modality... > > > That would be very nice IMHO. It could be good to keep a highly modal > > interface, since this is common in some/many existing DTP apps (Quark, > > anybody?). Personally I loathe it, and if Scribus's priorities don't > > include 'easily picked up by other DTP app users' then cool, just pull > > it. How hard would it be to leave in though? > > With modes, there's you looking at your document as text, as potential > text frames, as existing text frames, as graphic frames, and so on. Each > has buttons and settings associated with it. With few or no modes, > there's just you and your document (and buttons and settings that act > directly on it). What that means is that there is less learning > involved... and you can get right to work. > > We'll know we've succeeded when it doesn't matter what, if anything, > people were used to before they found Scribus, because Scribus doesn't > take any getting used to. > > >> Likewise, modality could be further reduced by eliminating the > >> distinction between text frames and image frames... > > > > I like :-) I've never really understood why DTP apps do this > > Franz? --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Mail Server Anti-Virus]
