On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, B. Bogart wrote:
the usual widgets? (for example drawing something like Yves grid without using buttons or anything? I think there is something to be said for the vector style of PD that I don't see often used in "normal" GUI design.)
Since a long time it struck me as strange that in so many (almost all) GUI toolkits there are essentially two different systems that don't mix that well: what's inside the canvas vs what's outside of the canvas... I mean when there's even a canvas class worth something (e.g. in Tk).
But there *are* GUI toolkits in which everything is built on top of vector graphics: Fresco (aka Berlin), Genera (the old LISP OS), Squeak (a brand of Smalltalk)... well, that's off the top of my mind anyway.
Maybe it's just the long heritage of MacOS 1 which wasn't as much designed to be flexible as to be able to run within 1/8th of a meg of RAM including the apps. Then the inertia caught on somewhere, and then all the cross-platform craze froze GUI design solid because cross-platform means you have to build your design around the weakest of your target platform, or even worse ("least common denominator").
I'm not sold on the Zoomer idea. If anyone has used eyeweb what they have done is removed all nesting (abstractions and subpatches) and replaced with with the ability to zoom into a big mess.
Technically, PureData could do very well without subpatches, but without abstractions it would just not be PureData. However I don't even recommend removing the subpatch concept, and I don't think that the zooming stuff implies any of that, nor that its main use would even be to make larger patches without having to use scrollbars.
I've never had a case where I needed to see better what is happening up-close.
1. When the pointer device you are using is imprecise, you can't even hit an inlet 90% of the time. For example, ever tried patching on a touchscreen?
2. When the display is small or far away and the resolution makes pixels appear too small, I often can't even read what's on the screen. Not all versions of Linux make it quick to switch resolutions, and sometimes it's even just better to not mess with resolutions (e.g. most non-CRT displays, like on laptops and projectors)
3. When an object has been designed too small. Sometimes you just don't want to use Properties to reconfigure it as bigger, e.g. because it's inside a GOP abstraction that you don't want to mess with. Instead of resizing it you can now just zoom it instead.
Maybe when I was connecting many patch cords to many inlets, but that was the fastest way to do it once.
Even for one patch cord to one inlet it's faster because the target you are dragging to is bigger. And the target you are dragging from, the outlet, is bigger as well. Bigger targets are faster to click on because they're easier to reach.
other than the ability to have the choice to make one giant web of mess and be able to zoom into different regions of it.
Some people already make huge patches using scrollbars because of some assumed notion that the existence of scrollbars justifies their use - any use of them... and even that because scrollbars exist, then more space must be put between objects so that patches take more space so that one more feature of PureData gets used. It's like consumer society: we have a duty to eat bread in order to justify the baking of the bread. It's for the Economy. Except that, to make matters worse, the scrollbar feature of PureData doesn't have a market value. Whip me.
So I think we should abolish scrollbars. Or should we? (I'm kidding, but just because I am doesn't mean I'm not making a point.)
not to mention making the performance process seperate from the patching process (and I'm sure we almost all swap back in forth in many performances).
In performances I already have my left hand resting on Ctrl+E most of the time, just in case I need it, and that's because I need it often.
IIRC, Carmen advocates the abolition of the Run/Edit mode. I say that if this becomes a reality, then other things have to change. There prolly aren't enough keyboard shortcuts and key modifiers that we can rely on being available all of the time (laptop keyboards are small)... and then, dragging a numberbox without holding modifiers should do what exactly? The same as current Run-Mode, or the same as current Edit-Mode ?
I suggested other things, like adding a different, more accessible shortcut for Edit/Run toggling -- e.g. Escape or even CapsLock. The Ctrl+E powerchord is more complex for the hand and doing too quick often leads to Ctrl+W instead (been there done that).
diversity of interpolation algos, from lop~ to line, line~, line2, line3, pmpd and even a circular line.
"A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle." -- unknown author (presumably after too much topology)
____________________________________________________________________ Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada