Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-16, Roy Lanek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Does Ion have a facility to start tracing which commands are
> executed most frequently ... does it make sense if not? (If you
> use your own notebooks/desktops most of the time, or exclusively,
> you could perhaps remap more conveniently--depending from the
> keyboard's layout--commands.)

It should not be difficult to write a script that wraps 'defbindings'
to add statistic wrappers around the bindings themselves.

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Roy Lanek]

> *instructions statistic*, RISC's like, has been done

Apropos; I am using maildir's and maildrop, and need to do the
same with maildrop: some statistics for discovering from whose
mail-lists I receive mails a day the most, so to be able to
better arrange my entries in maildropfilter's maildir (most used
regex first; plus: here, there. or in another place I may spend
some time in trying to optimize).

Does Ion have a facility to start tracing which commands are
executed most frequently ... does it make sense if not? (If you
use your own notebooks/desktops most of the time, or exclusively,
you could perhaps remap more conveniently--depending from the
keyboard's layout--commands.)


/Roy
-- 
S
S . s l a c k w a r e  SS   dimana ada kemauan, di situ ada jalan
S + linux  SS   where there is a will, there is a way
S

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-15, Roy Lanek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I am using the V270 since a few months, and it is the best
> *mouse* I have used ever. (I am not saying that there can't be
> better mice around.)
>
> Wirth prefers mice with three buttons. I like ones with two ...

I go with the good old 3-button Pilot. Unfortunately, the left
button of my remaining one is dying, which is another reason
why I'm using it left-handed... The scroll wheel is quite 
cumbersome as a third button, often used for pasting. I 
wonder if there are ones with a proper third button and a
scrollwheel... They'd just have to move (in e.g. the present
Pilot) the scroll wheel a bit towards the centre and add a
third button in front of it.

> About the weight: 323 g of the V270. You would not be able
> to make a difference, it's still to little compared with the
> total: weight of a loaded notebook bag with or without mouse,

The high weight makes it heavier to move around, and adds 
requirements for the surface you use it on.

> About the touchpad: I think that it makes sense--for *special
> situations* [let's recall that a notebook is more or less
> mobile]: mouse doesn't work for any reason, no space to use it,
> etc. 

The nipple is preferrable; the touchpad mostly in the way unless
you disable it -- from my limited experience with laptops.

> Example: Helsinki, January, snow, night. Tuomo has just lowered
> the [electric powered] window glass on his side in the car, when
> he discovers that, suddenly, he can't longer lift the window
> glass--for any any reasons: ice, electric motor problem, etc. A
> simple winder would now be VERY welcomed.

Your example is flawed: Tuomo neither lives in Helsinki nor has or
drives an infernal machine. Tuomo uses highly reliable technology
known as the Oat Engine combined with such a marvel of simple and
reliable engineering known as the bicycle. And against the wind
and snow he goeth.

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Roy Lanek]

On "pantographs," continued:

I am using a Logitech V270 cordless optical mouse for bluetooth.
It weights 323 g [2x AA batteries inclusive!, thank you very
much]. A [manufacturer's description--but agreed:] 1000-dpi
optical sensor offers incredibly smooth, precise tracking for
maximum productivity while traveling [R.L.: and beyond].

The *look* is understatement for its class. Seen from the side,
the V270 has the profile of a cat who is making a hump. And
the nearly flat, tall, left and right sides of the V270 may
disappoint you at first ... in case you were expecting something
*cooler* for your eyes.

In fact, the ergonomics of the Logitech V270 is VERY well
designed.

In another post I have said I believe to have regular sized
hands. Okay, continuing: if I shape my hand like a cup, and lay
it over a desk in pronation [palm under] position, the V270 fills
PERFECTLY the hollow--provided I let the index- and the medium
fingers a bit uplifted ... perhaps like the fangs, or the first
pair of legs, of a funnel-web spider [atrax robustus].

The thumb on one side, and the annular plus the little finger
on the other one, can now SUPERBLY make grip on the--oh
wonder--flat, or nearly so, walls of the V270. While the index
and the annular rest, arranged in a comfortable V-position, over
two generously sized levers/*buttons*, with the wheel in the
middle, and thankfully not interfering ... in case one doesn't,
or can't use the wheel.

Wrist and forearm lay agreeably, if not entirely relaxed, on the
desk, virtually immobile: to let the V270 slide the mm or cm I
need [ca 1 cm to move the cursor from left to right, maybe 8 mm
from top to bottom], I merely flex, or extend, the thumb and the
little finger in general.

Voila', this ... arachnids-like arrangement of the hand--without
the cord there is also little to make the device recall a *mouse*
longer--is perhaps obeying to the .. *gradient* of the optimal
use of the V270. Which I would dare to say is a reasonably
representative contemporary *mouse*.

Kudos to Logitech.

I am using the V270 since a few months, and it is the best
*mouse* I have used ever. (I am not saying that there can't be
better mice around.)

Wirth prefers mice with three buttons. I like ones with two ...
in fact, I regard as not too challenging, from the perspective of
the *motoric* [physiology], to push two buttons contemporaneously
to emulate the third button. On the other hand, I ignore whether
an *instructions statistic*, RISC's like, has been done for the
need/use of buttons in mice: I very seldom need to emulate the
use of the third button. Moreover, I am a *fan* of the Spanish
architect Campo Baeza--a fellow from the *essentialist* movement
[those of the slogan "more with less," in a humorous, more
*positive*/*active* rephrasing/pun of the "less is more" of the
*minimalist*].

About the weight: 323 g of the V270. You would not be able
to make a difference, it's still to little compared with the
total: weight of a loaded notebook bag with or without mouse,
even not with a V270 ... you would not manage to discover if
there is one inside the bag without looking; I guess not even
be able to discriminate *differentially*: one bag in one hand,
another one in the second. 

About the touchpad: I think that it makes sense--for *special
situations* [let's recall that a notebook is more or less
mobile]: mouse doesn't work for any reason, no space to use it,
etc. And as longer it doesn't add significantly to the cost of
the notebook.

Example: Helsinki, January, snow, night. Tuomo has just lowered
the [electric powered] window glass on his side in the car, when
he discovers that, suddenly, he can't longer lift the window
glass--for any any reasons: ice, electric motor problem, etc. A
simple winder would now be VERY welcomed.

Ditto for Roy in [fantasy selection:] Palembang. Just replace snow
with rain [when it rains heavily in Sumatra, it comes down in one
hour as much water than in two-three rainy months in Zurich].


Cheers,

/Roy
-- 
S   buruk muka cermin dibelah
S . s l a c k w a r e  SS   ugly face, the mirror is split [blaming
S + linux  SS   the wrong cause or creating a scapegoat]
S

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-15 15:16 -0400, Etan Reisner wrote:
> When the scratchpad is open is there a way to get the 'active' frame of
> the underlying workspace? 

Yes, but you'd have to duplicate a lot of code in a Lua script. A C
module would have access to region_prepare_manage etc.

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Etan Reisner]

On Wed, Oct 10, 2007 at 10:42:28AM +, Tuomo Valkonen wrote:
> On 2007-10-10, Etan Reisner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Is there a specific type of launcher you are thinking about? Random
> > floating icons? A toolbar full of icons? Something else? Is there
> > something specific you want to launch with that? Would a popup or query
> > menu of the specific applications work the same for you?
>
> One possibility for a "floating" launcher could be to run some kind of file
> manager in the scratchpad. The annoying part is that you'd have to be quick
> to close the scratchpad for the program to not end up there, or write some
> scripts to kludge around this.

When the scratchpad is open is there a way to get the 'active' frame of
the underlying workspace? If so then writing a script to cause windows not
to open in the scratchpad could easily be written, though getting it to
only not allow that for windows launched from the file manager requires
the fdo startup spec stuff. (A module for which I have started looking
into, for whatever that's worth.)


> --
> Tuomo

-Etan

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-14, Roy Lanek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Moreover. I am using an optical [laser] mouse. Cordless
> {Bluetooth] by surplus. With VERY little *mechanics* in it
> [e.g., the lid to access the 2x AA batteries]. :)

I prefer mechanical mice over the optical crap that starts
bouncing the cursor one pixel up and down just by itself
without any device movement. And cordless--no thanks. The
so-called cordless devices actually have _more_ cords than
non-cordless ones, thanks to the gazillion AC adapters etc.
You need to switch batteries and so on, and batteries make
mice heavy. I also don't trust their proprietary encryptions.
(I guess bluetooth has something better, but the other concerns
remain.)

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Roy Lanek]

> It's a mechanical device for changing the size of a drawing or
> so by moving one pointer on a source image and another with a
> pencil on a target paper. Obviously, especially if the linkages
> are a bit worn down, it's rather cumbersome to point to a
> specific point in the target by moving just the source pointer.
> But this is the operation of the mouse.

Webster: [F pantographe, fr pant- + -graphe -graph] (1723)

 1: an instrument for copying (as a map) on a predetermined
 scale consisting of four light rigid bars jointed in a
 parallelogram form; also: any of various extensible devices
 of similar construction (as for use as brackets or gates)

 2: an electrical trolley carried by a collapsible and
 adjustable frame.

Moreover. I am using an optical [laser] mouse. Cordless
{Bluetooth] by surplus. With VERY little *mechanics* in it
[e.g., the lid to access the 2x AA batteries]. :)

Cheers,

/Roy
-- 
S   dimana tak da lang, aku lah lang, kata
S . s l a c k w a r e  SS   belalang--where there are no eagles, I am
S + linux  SS   the one, said the grasshopper [where's no
S   top dogs, underdogs will be seen as one]

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-13, Roy Lanek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Well, "pantographs" recall--for me at least--enough of, if not a
> lot of ... *space*: were you not suggesting the roomy shifting of
> a parallelogram?

It's a mechanical device for changing the size of a drawing or so 
by moving one pointer on a source image and another with a pencil 
on a target paper. Obviously, especially if the linkages are
a bit worn down, it's rather cumbersome to point to a specific point 
in the target by moving just the source pointer. But this is the 
operation of the mouse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pantograph.jpg

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Roy Lanek]

> You mean there are more than one?

By author even. On *la tentation de saint Antoine* [not his most
*known* work], Flaubert should have said: --"C'est l'oeuvre de
toute ma vie."-- (You can trust him.)

Paint. Not necessarily. I use Elvis, an 80/20 of Vim at 1/2-1/3
of the size. I don't see why I couldn't edit/manipulate a *tool*
the way I do with Elvis.

> What's agoraphobia got to do with mice?

Well, "pantographs" recall--for me at least--enough of, if not a
lot of ... *space*: were you not suggesting the roomy shifting of
a parallelogram?

> Computer mice simply are terrible devices not suited at all to
> the vast majority of the tasks people want you to use them for.

Disagree. (The number #1 accessory I buy with a notebook is
a mouse, to let us understand. Alphabet Morse tipping on the
touchpad--and which becomes hot [cpu: 59 C, sda: 40 C, don't know
how much for the ATI Radeon] by the way--attracts me less.)

Cheers,


/Roy
-- 
S   bagai air di daun talas--as if water on a
S . s l a c k w a r e  SS   leaf of talas [two things that never get
S + linux  SS   along ... talas has a thin waxy layer and
S   therefore is waterproof]

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-13, Roy Lanek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What to say? "Teddy" [Adorno] tells that every and each
> masterpiece is the *mortal* enemy of the other one. 

You mean there are more than one?

> Besides: no one is saying that you couldn't longer type tabs, why
> make it an aut aut?

That's the way it's been in these implementations: you _have_ to use
the rodent and heavily. As such, having a buffer to store commands
(one per line) into doesn't sound that bad, but the actual interface
to use those commands (on the typical computer with controls separate
from display) -- it should be a command query that searches for matching
lines or so. But these people want you to paint the text with the rat,
which is a very cumbersome task.

> Look in a dictionary: agoraphobia. What do you have against
> mice?

What's agoraphobia got to do with mice? 

Computer mice simply are terrible devices not suited at all to
the vast majority of the tasks people want you to use them for.

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Roy Lanek]

> This is the Acme/P9 interface [...] and it's just
> utter and total crap on a typical horizontal-controls-
> and-vertical-screen computer,

"utter and total crap," hmm. Bah, I will let it to you.

A VERY knowledgeable guy (you certainly knows who he is) has
(among other things) designed a VERY nice programming language:
Eiffel. Unfortunately, he would--and does, indeed--call "utter
and total crap" everything is not Eiffel.

What to say? "Teddy" [Adorno] tells that every and each
masterpiece is the *mortal* enemy of the other one. Who knows.
Alternatively, an university assistant, a fellow among the very
few really good programmers [a mathematician by education, of
course] I have met, has remarked once at a cafeteria with the
*scherzoso ma non troppo* tone which distinguishes cafeterias'
conversations: --Uuuh, Bertrand is of the kind of geniuses which
should get a ... mouse :) plugged somewhere: click-click, "help,
I have this specific problem/don't understand that, please
explain"; and when he finishes, and begins speaking of other
things: "another time, thank you Bertrand," click-click--.

> I've hit a command query key, typed a couple of letters of 
> the command and hit  faster than moving the hand to the   
> mouse! 

:)

Maybe, but do you know The Hare and the Hedgehog tale by the
Brothers Grimm? (Beware.)

Besides: no one is saying that you couldn't longer type tabs, why
make it an aut aut?

> Not to even speak of pixel-hunting text with the pantograph that
> the mouse is.

:)

Look in a dictionary: agoraphobia. What do you have against
mice?

Cheers,

 
/Roy
-- 
S  bermain air basah, bermain api hangus
S . s l a c k w a r e  SS  playing with water, wet; playing with fire,
S + linux  SS  burned [every action has its consequences]
S

Re: Oberon/Acme/etc. mouse heavy interfaces [Was: Re: Life, universe, and ION3]

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-13, Roy Lanek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Nice would be somethings like *tools* ... as in Oberon^1.
>
> Reference is: The Oberon System^2
>
>  [C]ommands are entered into a text *viewer* and then
>  executed with the mouse. It is therefore quite natural to
 ^
>  prepare a set of frequently used commands in a text which is
>  stored on disk. Such a text is called a *tool*. [Commands
>  may be embedded anywhere in a text.]

This is the Acme/P9 interface that I referred to in another post, 
and it's just utter and total crap on a typical horizontal-controls-
and-vertical-screen computer, but might be usable on a touch screen
tablet. The "marketing" for this kind of interfaces is from the 
pre-tab-completion era! From the pre-historical era! (Pun intended.)
I've hit a command query key, typed a couple of letters of the 
command and hit  faster than moving the hand to the mouse! 
Not to even speak of pixel-hunting text with the pantograph that
the mouse is.

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Roy Lanek]

> I'm really using, and not significantly faster than a Run:
> dialog (mod1-F3 in the default bindings).

Nice would be somethings like *tools* ... as in Oberon^1.

Reference is: The Oberon System^2

 [C]ommands are entered into a text *viewer* and then
 executed with the mouse. It is therefore quite natural to
 prepare a set of frequently used commands in a text which is
 stored on disk. Such a text is called a *tool*. [Commands
 may be embedded anywhere in a text.]

 [W]hen displayed, a tool is quite similar to a menu. A set
 of commands is listed and the user simply executes them
 with the mouse. However, if the commands request parameter
 input, there is no need for complex (modal) input or dialog
 boxes. We deal with an editable text and the parameter can
 be easily entered, thus recovering the flexibility of the
 'remember and type' environment.

 [T]he [Oberon] screen is tiled in non-overlapping windows
 termed *viewers*. Viewers are stacked in two piles called
 *tracks*. Each viewer displays a document being processed by
 the users. Documents may be texts, graphics or pictures.

 [W]hile the display shown appears familiar there is a
 fundamental difference of deep significance: *the modality
 of texts has been abolished*. What looks like menus in the
 title bars of the viewers is text too, no different from the
 editable text of the main viewer area.

 [I]f a command produces output to the screen, a new text
 viewer is opened with the command's output text. Again,
 this text may be edited, stored or printed. Oberon commands
 produce *non-volatile* output.

 [A] user, looking at the screen of a typical computer
 terminal or personal computer, sees, most of the time, lines
 of text. He or she has mastered the concept of the cursor, a
 point where text can be entered or deleted.

 [H]owever, the user will quickly learn that text is not
 text. It is *volatile* text in the sense that it cannot
 be saved, printed or edited. Text can only be entered in
 the bottom line in which case it is a command. This user
 has discovered that text is *modal*: it is either a system
 message or editable text or a command.

 [L]ater generations of software introduced menus: commands
 are displayed in lists, ready for execution by pointing.
 However, menus are distinct from editable texts. If a menu
 command requests parameters, a so-called dialog box is
 opened. A new mode is entered. The user must complete the
 box before he or she is allowed to continue.

 [T]he Oberon user interface departs radically from the
 standard models. The concepts of the command line and of
 menus are absent. Instead, there is simply one kind of text
 which behaves as an intelligent person not yet spoiled
 by so-called 'computer-literacy' would expect: it can be
 changed, edited, printed and stored. "Text is a text,
 nothing more, nothing less."


Okay, and how does a typical Oberon display look?

 Tracks [two piles]
 ++--+
 ||  |
 ||  |
 ++  |
 ||  |
 |+--+
 ||  |
 ||  |
 ||  |
 |+--+
 ++  |
 ||  |
 ++  |
 ||  |
 ||  |
 | |  |   |  |
 +- --+--- --+
   |  |
   |  |
  viewer[i]  tool[j]



 1. Niklaus Wirth et al., many titles: Programming in Oberon,
Project Oberon, etc.

 2. Martin Reiser, The Oberon System: User Guide and
Programmer's Manual (New York, New York: ACM Press 1991; ISBN
0-201-54422-9)


/Roy
-- 
S  habis manis sepah dibuang--after the sweet
S . s l a c k w a r e  SS  part is finished and becomes tasteless,
S + linux  SS  the cane is thrown away [when we only call
S  our friends if we need help]

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-10, Etan Reisner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is there a specific type of launcher you are thinking about? Random
> floating icons? A toolbar full of icons? Something else? Is there
> something specific you want to launch with that? Would a popup or query
> menu of the specific applications work the same for you?

One possibility for a "floating" launcher could be to run some kind of file 
manager in the scratchpad. The annoying part is that you'd have to be quick 
to close the scratchpad for the program to not end up there, or write some
scripts to kludge around this.

Another possibility would be to run a suitable dockapp (there probably
exist suitable ones; see dockapps.org), either in the floating dock, or
simply in the statusbar, not floating. If the latter suffices, you might
also want to check a thread from some months back started regarding the
RoX panel.

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Etan Reisner]

On Tue, Oct 09, 2007 at 03:07:26PM +0200, ,,, wrote:

> Icon based, floating style application launcher.

What do you mean here exactly? Just a launcher that uses icons? There are
any number of applications that give you a bar of icons that can be
customized to launch applications of your choice, in general I've found
them less than helpful, annoying to keep configured with the applications
I'm really using, and not significantly faster than a Run: dialog (mod1-F3
in the default bindings).

Is there a specific type of launcher you are thinking about? Random
floating icons? A toolbar full of icons? Something else? Is there
something specific you want to launch with that? Would a popup or query
menu of the specific applications work the same for you?



-Etan

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Etan Reisner]

On Tue, Oct 09, 2007 at 12:38:54PM +0200, Sylvain Abélard wrote:

> > GUI based configuration tool for the keybindings.
> > Support for alternate keybindings.
>
> I don't think there are many users out there still using the default
> keybindings.
> This encourages people to look at cfg_bindings.lua and make their own,
> which is IMHO an excellent policy.



I use a mostly stock set of bindings. The bindings I did change were
mostly to move them to MOD4, a couple to add bindings for some scripts I
use/wrote, and a couple to make the edln bindings a little more
emacs/readline friendly.

Copying the default cfg_bindings.lua file into ~/.ion3 and then attempting
to customize it is not a good idea, it creates upgrade problems (which I
will grant you matters less and less as ion3 approaches stable) and
requires more effort to deal with in general than the much easier option
of just creating and overriding any bindings you actually want to change
in cfg_ion.lua (or in any other file in ~/.ion3 that you then dopath()
from cfg_ion.lua).

As to the gui config tool idea, there was a mailing list thread a little
while ago about creating a simplified binding format for ion3 and after
which I worked on a script for just such a thing, you can find it in the
scripts repository, that's not quite a config gui but it should be much
easier for an 'average' person to deal with than the lua config files (or
so was the theory of the people in the mailing list thread).

-Etan

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-09, Roy Lanek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Incidentally, and to get an idea of the *gravity* the situation:
> compare with ... Egypt and Greece, say, of the past. 
>
> Were they not--ironically--more *artistically advanced* [read:
> provided with a more vivid imagination] still than ... hem,
> *we* anno 2007? (Hello *Teddy* [Adorno], who once called our
> *modern history* [cultural] *progressing* rather a regression
> into pre-agrarian times.)

Umm... even cave-men must have had more vidid art and architecture
than that of the more general chronic form of arrogance known as 
modernism. As for more post-modern stuff, it takes taste, which 
few have. Banalities are easy.

> Guess what?! icons are a bit limited--or then are completely
> arbitrary--as a medium and language to be used in defining and
> describing tasks to be accomplished through a *fantasy*- [sigh]
> less automaton and computer. They are wrong metaphors--actually a
> kind of aphasia, or incapability to speak and explain--as much as
> *cute* and *charming* [sigh] they may appear.

Icons are very limited in their expressive power, and therefore
they only work when there are just a few of them, that can be
easily distinguished. But the typical WIMPshit application has
tens of tiny ones lined up in a toolbar.

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Roy Lanek]

> Yep. .

And at: http://www.niallmoody.com/twindy/screenshots.htm there
are screenshots to be seen.

Twindy may, or may not ... I ignore, be good. On the other hand,
the screenshots show without pity icons whose substance grade and
themes range from authentic *Art Brut*^1 to kindergarten.

Let's see: hammers, screwdrivers, spanners as they would come
directly from Brio or Meccano of the children; magnifying lens,
scissors, envelopes and folders from the kids' Little Postal
Store; houses, pencils and colorful arrows--to the left, the
right, up, down, cycle--from the game of the goose or the books
of the Brothers Grimm; and so on.

Incidentally, and to get an idea of the *gravity* the situation:
compare with ... Egypt and Greece, say, of the past. (Who has
visited Pompeii, the ruins, near Naples once, at the limit?
Notice that Pompeii has even been a kind of Club Meditarranee of
the past, NOT a *cradle* of civilization for sure!)

Were they not--ironically--more *artistically advanced* [read:
provided with a more vivid imagination] still than ... hem,
*we* anno 2007? (Hello *Teddy* [Adorno], who once called our
*modern history* [cultural] *progressing* rather a regression
into pre-agrarian times.)

Guess what?! icons are a bit limited--or then are completely
arbitrary--as a medium and language to be used in defining and
describing tasks to be accomplished through a *fantasy*- [sigh]
less automaton and computer. They are wrong metaphors--actually a
kind of aphasia, or incapability to speak and explain--as much as
*cute* and *charming* [sigh] they may appear.

Cheers,

/Roy


PS

Icons--not convinced yet? Put a look at a last Fluxbox *theme*.
Who knows, you may discover Cinderella, or Hansel and Gretel
*fashioned* icons stuffed in menus [with rounded corners!] in
a Postmodern, or ... what else?, Hyperrealist atmosphere and
*ambiente*. Or also: Mattel [Barbie, the doll] on Giger^2 ...
chacun a son gout, isn't it?


 1. Art Brut. [T]he idea of "Art Brut" appeared around 1945.
Its conception is generally attributed to the French painter Jean
Dubuffet who meant by the term "works executed by those immune to
artistic culture in which imitation has no role; in which their
creators take all (subjects, materials, transposition, rhythm,
style etc.) from their own individuality and not from the base
of classical art or stylish trends". One can understand from
this definition that practitioners of "Art Brut" are mentally or
socially marginal: prisoners, patients of psychiatric hospitals
or other institutions, originals, solitary beings, condemned, all
individuals who have a social status removed from the constraints
of cultural conditioning.

 2. Hans Ruedi Giger. [G]iger got his start with small
ink drawings before progressing to oil paintings. For most
of his career, Giger has worked predominantly in airbrush,
creating monochromatic canvasses depicting surreal, nightmarish
dream-scapes.

 [H]is most distinctive stylistic innovation is that of
a representation of human bodies and machines in a cold,
interconnected relationship, described as "biomechanical". His
paintings often display fetishistic sexual imagery and are
considered disturbing by some.

 Giger is also the guy known by most people because of
Alien's, the movie, designs for sure. 

 
-- 
S  habis manis sepah dibuang--after the sweet
S . s l a c k w a r e  SS  part is finished and becomes tasteless,
S + linux  SS  the cane is thrown away [when we only call
S  our friends if we need help]

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Ben Hutchings]

On Tue, 2007-10-09 at 15:07 +0200, ,,, wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> 
> Some week ago i read about ION window-manager at the Hungarian Unix 
> Portal. Due, I'm an engineering monkey, and i really hates wasting my time 
> playing with the windows locations, i 
> thought the tiling wm would be a good thing for me. So, i pulled down the 
> ION2 from the Debian respository and give 
> it a shot. 
> My first thoughts: Simple, efficient and fast.
> After that, i dowloaded the ION3 source, and compiled it.


There is also a Debian package of Ion3 (which I maintain) but due to
Tuomo's trademark policy it is in the non-free section so you will have
to add that to your APT sources to see it.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[csant]

There actually was some interesting attempt to create a very
kiosky WM, but it's been abandoned, and I can't remember its
name.


Twindy?

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-09 18:54 +0200, csant wrote:
> Twindy?

Yep. .

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-09, Roy Lanek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is it a sardonic, or a "WC graffiti"-style (to borrow from your
> post) :) like answer? If yes, then you can stop reading, false
> alarm.

No, it's semi-serious. But I guess this kind of stuff doesn't
really belong in the WM itself. And, indeed, now with the some
improvements I made to the status display stuff, you could run
some panel application to do. But you'd probably want some WM
interaction protocols to actually switch to a running program
and so on.

There actually was some interesting attempt to create a very
kiosky WM, but it's been abandoned, and I can't remember its
name.

> Icons, a dozen or two ones [airports, restaurants, etc.]
> excepted, truly belong to the *creme* of the crap--sugar
> candies--that has delayed developing in depth and re-discovering
> a much more intelligent way to interact with programs in general
> by keeping people attracted to it. No icons please.

Icons aren't that bad for some applications and touch screens.
Just like the acme/p9 mouse-heavy interface is just utter and 
total crap on vertical-screen-and-horizontal-controls tabletop
computers, it might actually work quite nicely on touch screen
tablets. The mouse is to a touch screen what a pantograph is
to a pencil!

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-09 14:47 +0100, Sam Mason wrote:
> I hope the "inferior minds" comment below was intended as a joke --

Not really. Not everyone is up to the task of designing a programming
language, and certainly not a beautiful and useful one (certainly not
the C++ designers!), whereas it is comparatively easy to write a
crappy library up to a specification of what it must provide access 
to. Designing a beautiful library -- now that takes effort again.

> On Tue, Oct 09, 2007 at 12:48:58PM +, Tuomo Valkonen wrote:
> What makes these libraries/frameworks
> "inferior", rather than just different and/or unsuitable for solving the
> problems you're (currently) interested in?

I'm not saying unsuitable, I'm saying they suck aesthetically.

Good programming is art, science, and engineering. In present
practise the engineering -- i.e. ugly kludges to get things
working now, fast -- aspect is dominant almost to the exclusion
of the two others.

> Has Haskell gone out of favour with you, or is it just GHC/Hugs'
> byzantine libraries.

As I already said, the language itself (well, Haskell'98 anyway 
-- the extensions are rather crummy) is rather nice, but the 
libraries suffer from YAMMBHE.

> If you know of a better way, than a hierachy, of organising large
> amounts of (generally interdependant) code then I'd be interested to
> hear it.

C doesn't need organisation... Now, namespaces would be nice, but
I don't think they should form a global rigid hierarchy that will
run without central bureaucratic control into conflicts just like 
a global (non-cryptographic) flat namespace. I think libraries 
should be imported locally in a given namespace. You know, like
Haskell already lets you import libraries from the Huge Hierarchy
locally in modules with a different name

import qualified Some.Deeply.Nested.Crummy.Shit as S

with Some.Deeply.Nested.Crummy.Shit actually provided by
'-package foobar' on the command line, when it isn't part
of the standard MegaCollection. So why not have various
small libraries living in the operating system's namespace
(the file system) and import them locally with some name,
using the file name directly (instead of the compiler system,
like GHC, having a crummy wheel-reinventing database for its
own packages)

-package S=/pkg/libfoobar-1/lib/libfoobar.so

(Then further combine this with the cryptographic namespace
of a package capability system [1].)

  [1]: http://iki.fi/tuomov/b/archives/2007/07/16/T22_41_22/

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Roy Lanek]

> > Icon based, floating style application launcher.

> Yuck. Well, for a touch screen kiosk sort of thing, a sort of
> sidebar application launcher could be nice...

Is it a sardonic, or a "WC graffiti"-style (to borrow from your
post) :) like answer? If yes, then you can stop reading, false
alarm.

Icon stuffed sidebars/menus can be seen with Fluxbox, the window
manager. (Fluxbox which now has even ... *rounded menu corners*.)
Is that what you mean?

The point: Fluxbox illustrates well how a passable
[retrospectively observing] window manager originally, Blackbox,
has been transformed into a pig:

500K for Blackbox [stripped], versus 1,2-1.3M [stripped] or
more for Fluxbox, I don't remember ... I don't use Fluxbox,
have merely tried it for a couple of day. (And never mind the
UNAVOIDABLE errors [discover how many of these a guy such Wietse
Venema admits he is still making when he programs with maximal
care]--a percent of them involving security of course--per, say,
every thousand lines of code that constitute a program ... don't
forget that things do NOT worsen linearly, by surplus.)

Fluxbox adds zero, or little, SIGNIFICANT features compared
to Blackbox: *post factum* window tabbing can be functionally
included/simulated more intelligently via mrxvt, an rxvt based
terminal emulator. (mrxvt, 184K [stripped], adds the only good
thing Fluxbox has and Blackbox doesn't: tabbing.)

Said that, window managers such Ion or wmii are the ones
to go eventually--and the sooner the better.

Icons, a dozen or two ones [airports, restaurants, etc.]
excepted, truly belong to the *creme* of the crap--sugar
candies--that has delayed developing in depth and re-discovering
a much more intelligent way to interact with programs in general
by keeping people attracted to it. No icons please.

Cheers,

/Roy Lanek

-- 
S  jadilah orang pandai bagai padi yang merunduk
S . s l a c k w a r e  SS  be a smart man, like drooping paddy--which 
droops
S + linux  SS  more as it matures since its kernel is 
getting
S  heavier [means: smart man is usually humble]

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-09, Sylvain Abélard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> But F# and the recent DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) looks really sexy !

Many languages themselves aren't that bad (Nemerle is another interesting 
DotNet language), but the libraries and library frameworks around them, 
designed by inferior minds, tend to suffer from megalomaniac hierarchies
(Haskell is another example) as well as OO fetish these days.

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Sylvain Abélard]

On 10/9/07, Tuomo Valkonen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 2007-10-09, Sylvain Abélard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Provided you bear with monoculture and software locks, why not.
> Sounds like where FOSS is heading.

You don't find heroic Tuomo Valkonen's making your Windows usable. Yet.

> DotNet is YAMMHBE

But F# and the recent DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) looks really sexy !

-- 
Sylvain Abelard,
Railer Rubyist. Epita MTI 2008.

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-09, Sylvain Abélard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Provided you bear with monoculture and software locks, why not.

Sounds like where FOSS is heading.

> DotNet begins to show many cool stuff for developers,
> but still the intended user is expected to be another brainless WIMP-tard.

DotNet is YAMMHBE (Yet Another Megalomaniac Modernist Bureaucracy and 
Hierarchy of Everything). 

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Sylvain Abélard]

On 10/9/07, Tuomo Valkonen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 2007-10-09, Sylvain Abélard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Sorry if my advice seems outdated, I've been Windows-imprisoned for a long 
> > time.

> At least there's _still_ that choice to the OSDL-sponsored hegemony.
> (I'm beginning to think OSDL and its member companies are more harmful
> to software choice than Microsoft, by sponsoring projects that turn
> Linux, and *nix userland in general, into an idiot box clusterfuck.)

Provided you bear with monoculture and software locks, why not.
DotNet begins to show many cool stuff for developers,
but still the intended user is expected to be another brainless WIMP-tard.

-- 
Sylvain Abelard,
Railer Rubyist. Epita MTI 2008.

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-09, Sylvain Abélard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Sorry if my advice seems outdated, I've been Windows-imprisoned for a long 
> time.

At least there's _still_ that choice to the OSDL-sponsored hegemony.
(I'm beginning to think OSDL and its member companies are more harmful
to software choice than Microsoft, by sponsoring projects that turn
Linux, and *nix userland in general, into an idiot box clusterfuck.)

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Tuomo Valkonen]

On 2007-10-09, ,,, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Also i have some ideas and thoughts, which i compiled to kind of
> whistlist. Most is not a basic wm feature, but it would be nice in a
> tabbed, tiling wm. Maybe some of these already developed, but spending 13
> hours with the soldering iron, and 3 hours moving bricks every day, leaves
> me a small time to reading the documentations.

As mentioned in another post, I'm unlikely to be writing any new stuff 
for Ion in the next handful of years, if ever. It's time for something
else, and GNU/Linux (and consequently *BSD as well to a slightly lesser
extent) is turning into such a clusterfuck idiot box, that I doubt 
there's anything semi-usable to run Ion on after I'm ready to start
working on Ion4... aside from maybe Windows. Nevertheless, I'm likely
to put up an 'Ion3plus' repository after the stable Ion3 is released,
where users can contribute code moderated/edited by me, the malevolent
dictator -- or rather, editor. (A project with an editor that does his
job is like a journal with a good editor, whereas a truly bazaarian 
software project is like writings on the toilet wall -- or the typical
wiki.)

> Policy settings for the new window creation. When i run some multyple
> window application (mplayer, gimp), it would be nice if i could set where
> must the spawned window must to be placed. Currently it's follows the
> mouse pointer. My idea is to be set a policy for every application (tabs)
> for the method of the new window placement. Three or four rules (same
> tile, some tile, any tile, float) would be suffice.

This is something of a FAQ. You can set somewhat rigid policies by the
winprops mechanism, as indicated in another post. I'd like the default
to be to place the windows in the frame they were created from, but
this requires application support. It should be doable by writing a
support module for the (typically ultra-complicated) FDO startup spec,
which I couldn't be arsed to do, but few applications that matter
actually support it. So in lack of that, placing windows in the
current window is the policy of least surprise.

> Auto size adjust for the fixed size applications at start. If i run some
> application like gkrellm, xmms, it would be nice, if the tile size
> automatically set, when it's start.

Maybe you can write a script to do so. I don't like it. Ion-friendly
applications should behave as if they were full-screen (single-document)
programs, adjusting to the size of their virtual screen -- the Ion frame.
For some smaller monitor sort of applications I did once think of writing
a support for so-called trays (nothing to do with the tiny system tray icons),
but couldn't be arsed.

> Switching the application to full screen mode, and back to the previous 
> tile settings. 

Umm... Mod1+Enter is a toggle, or what do you mean?

> Mouse aided tile resize.

You can resize with the rat.

> GUI based configuration tool for the keybindings.

But not WIMP-GUI, please. Rather, curses. 

> Support for alternate keybindings. 

It's configurable.

> Icon based, floating style application launcher.

Yuck. Well, for a touch screen kiosk sort of thing, a sort of sidebar
application launcher could be nice... 

-- 
Tuomo

Re: Life, universe, and ION3

[Sylvain Abélard]

> Requested features:
Tuomo said he wouldn't develop new features and focuses on the last
stable ion version.

> Policy settings for the new window creation.
This is done using winprops in cfg_kludges.lua.
I think the main distribution includes some kludges samples.

> Auto size adjust for the fixed size applications at start.

Tuomo thinks this is brain damaged. If he were even to develop that,
what should happen when many apps will try to set their own fixed size
? One cannot decide.
Then, what will happen to your desktop when even a single fixed size
app will come and mess everything up ?

My policy about fixed size apps is preparing the layout for them then
using winprops to make them stick into their allowed space.

> Switching the application to full screen mode, and back
This already exists, grep fullscreen in your cfg_bindings.lua.

> Mouse aided tile resize.
This already exists.

> GUI based configuration tool for the keybindings.
> Support for alternate keybindings.

I don't think there are many users out there still using the default
keybindings.
This encourages people to look at cfg_bindings.lua and make their own,
which is IMHO an excellent policy.

> Icon based, floating style application launcher.

There might be some apps doing that but that doesn't sound like ion's
business to me.

Sorry if my advice seems outdated, I've been Windows-imprisoned for a long time.

-- 
Sylvain Abelard,
Railer Rubyist. Epita MTI 2008.

Life, universe, and ION3

[,,,]

Hi all!


Some week ago i read about ION window-manager at the Hungarian Unix 
Portal. Due, I'm an engineering monkey, and i really hates wasting my time 
playing with the windows locations, i 
thought the tiling wm would be a good thing for me. So, i pulled down the ION2 
from the Debian respository and give 
it a shot. 
My first thoughts: Simple, efficient and fast.
After that, i dowloaded the ION3 source, and compiled it. Well, it's a 
bit different from the Debian's ION2, but the development is clear. The Run 
menu file listing is damned fast 
comapared to the GTK+ same function.
I'm still testing it, but i can't find any bug, yet.
Also i have some ideas and thoughts, which i compiled to kind of 
whistlist. Most is not a basic wm feature, but it would be nice in a tabbed, 
tiling wm. Maybe some of these already 
developed, but spending 13 hours with the soldering iron, and 3 hours moving 
bricks every day, leaves me a small 
time to reading the documentations.

Requested features:

Policy settings for the new window creation. When i run some multyple 
window application (mplayer, gimp), it would be nice if i could set where must 
the spawned window must to be 
placed. Currently it's follows the mouse pointer. My idea is to be set a policy 
for every application (tabs) for 
the method of the new window placement.
Three or four rules (same tile, some tile, any tile, float) would be 
suffice.

Auto size adjust for the fixed size applications at start. If i run some 
application like gkrellm, xmms, it would be nice, if the tile size 
automatically set, when it's start.

Switching the application to full screen mode, and back to the previous 
tile settings. Some applications like the IDEs, database managers, CADs 
requires full screen and split screen mode in the working process (for 
example: routing the PCB with the layout editor and checking the 
schematic at the same time. Usually it's a constant switching between 
the "splited" [picking and placing a part] and fullscreen mode [routing 
the part's net]) 

Mouse aided tile resize.


User experiences:
These are some ideas for applications, which increasing the user base of 
the ION. I know, these are not necessary for a successfull wm, but 
usually these tools, which is mostly affect the user feels.

GUI based configuration tool for the keybindings.

Support for alternate keybindings. The basic ION keybindings is disaster 
using with Midnight Commander or Gentoo file managers. Both of these 
heavily depends on the funtion keys. Also the most CADs heavily depends 
on the function keys.

Icon based, floating style application launcher.

Happy hacking!
Mark Balogh
HUNGARY