Re: [boost] Re: [gui] GUI Taxonomy

From: Alan Gutierrez (alan-boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-12-25 08:24:22

* Alan Gutierrez <alan-boost_at_[hidden]> [2004-12-25 07:50]:
> * Reece Dunn <msclrhd_at_[hidden]> [2004-12-25 07:03]:
> > Alan Gutierrez wrote:
> > >    The Revised Taxonomy
> > >
> > >    The Form, The Grid, The Document, & The Canvas.
> 
> > I think that trying to work out the taxonomy of user interfaces is the 
> > wrong way to go. In general, it is not clear how these break down.
> 
>     Really?
> 
> > For example, an application will usually have a main interface frame, 
> > such as the web browser. In this case the taxonomy is the Document to 
> > use your terminology. The application may also provide a set of options 
> > that the user can configure, which is The Form.
> 
>     Perfect break down.
> 
> > Also, consider an e-mail manager like Thunderbird. It is a mixed 
> > taxonomy application. It has a left pane consisting of the available 
> > folders (a tree component), a list of the messages in the folder (a 
> > Grid) and the contents of the message (a Document).
> 
>     Yup. Exactly. The tree, it's a common widget, and panes are part
>     of windowing. In the case of Thuderbird, the tree is implemented
>     as an XML document, with paragraphs that are indented, that
>     expand and collapse.
> 
>     (Thunderbird is an amazing example of what you can do with a
>         component like an XML + CSS renderer. All of those controls
>         are, in fact XML documents.)
> 
> > Then what about games? Media players like WinAMP? These do not fit into 
> > one of the above Taxonomy items.
> 
>     Games don't fit, granted. I'd be hard pressed to come up with a
>     generic basis for Photoshop.
>     
>     WinAMP is a skinnable form, and if all you are is WinAMP you
>     might want to draw your own controls on the drawing surface,
>     fine, but you could implement an WinAMP UI in XUL easily.
> 
> > The above fit into specialized frame types (the Form), components (the 
> > Grid) and content renderers (the Document and Canvas).
> 
>     I'd say that the framing, tabs, splitters, and the like, are
>     part of content area management. I'm intereseted in providing
>     application developers with building blocks for the content
>     area, and more than wrappers around common controls and graphics
>     primatives.
> 
>     These problems Forms, Grids, Documents, and Canvas are what most
>     applications are made of. This is why web development is so
>     popular, because it focuses not on spliting windows, but filling them.
> 
>     Firefox provides Forms, Grids (tables), Documents, all scriptable,
>     and if you add Flash, you have a generic Canvas application.
> 
>     It think it is important to recognize these content building blocks.

    Maybe Taxonomy was too portentious. I don't want to get bogged
    down defending a "Taxonomy", when I'm trying to learn bjam and
    Boost.Build in the other window.

    Content building blocks, I'd like to have 'em.

    I'd like to talk about them. In addition to the dialog boxes,
    the tabs and splitters, the graphics primititives, can a
    Boost.GUI provide some robust strategies for the client area of
    the application? This is really the discussion like like to have. 

    Widgets + layouts hit a ceiling pretty quick.

    I'm really impressed with Thuderbird and Firebird, where they've
    used their XML + CSS renderer, the content renderer, to do
    pretty much everything else, wigets, splitters, dialgos. I think
    that shows a lot of forsight.

--
Alan Gutierrez - alan_at_[hidden]