World: r3wp

shadwolf, you are pretty good at misunderstanding how large GUIs 
are and should be constructed.

As ever do the hard things first ...

maybe ... but being ugly shouldn't be you main motivation :)

because pretty or ugly: it will not help to speed up development 
time for a large program from months to weeks. having a proper GUI 
architecture saves money in the end. money! :-)

GRaham sure ... but you know things piles up you don't do the most 
 easy part and having the most  impact because you have other better 
things to add more important and in the end you have 10 times the 
gob doing the same thing in an ugly way ...

compare the 10 years that Max has spent on glass vs the months that 
Henrik has spent

graham yeah but who said henrik was supposed to be lonely ? ok are 
we talking about the default set of widget or are we speaking of 
custom made widget set. that's not the same...

graham most of those 10  years of developpement were based on overcomming 
limitations of R2 VID...

We need to get the basic infrastructure code to a level that it can 
be used by others and won't result in everyone fixen (and by this 
forking) the R3-GUI code.

As soon as this is done, it's released and you all can start writing 
styles like made. At this time it's ensured that it all will fit 
together.

And how close are we?

It doesn't make any sense to fragment our community by having 10 
different GUI libs.

And any idea why the new draw stuff wasn't in the A103 hostkit?

host-kit was the first mandatory step so that we can now fix GUI 
bugs that we find while developing the base infrastructure code. 
This is now done.

draw: No specific reason. I think Carl, wanted to get A103 out of 
the door to get feedback on callbacks. I think an update will come 
soon, as everything is there and can be included.

basic-styles: We need to provide some basic styles with resizing 
etc. included, so you can see how this all works. This is what we 
currently do. Sprint review is today. Than I will have a better overview 
about where we are at the moment. ASAP we will release the GUI to 
you.

Shadwolf, if you have suggestions for the UI look, by all means post 
samples. Maybe you didn't know the look hadn't been decided, so just 
consider posting messages with a positive spin to encourage those 
working for our benefit to continue doing so. ;-)

If say I wanted to try helping out with the graphic design of the 
GUI, what would be the best approach? Create some mock-up using a 
graphics design app? Can REBOL create anything I could come up with? 
What are the limitations I should impose on the design in terms of 
UI states, style overlapping, transparency, etc?

maybe we should put up a bounty and try to get a bunch of proposals 
done using www.99designs.com - seems a pretty decent way of getting 
ideas from a whole bunch of designers all the while being able to 
guide their designs using feedback

I'd put up some cash for that

but even there, the problem could be that a concept that looks good 
as a 2D design can't be implemented adequately in the REBOL's GUI

R3Gui is a closed development ... they're not looking to be distracted 
from finishing their design goals.  After that ... I guess it would 
be much more feasible.

I'm not talking about the programming part, but strictly the look

I know ..

Their emphasis at present is on functionality

Robert i'm agree with you we are 10 we can't make 1 GUI lib by person 
 that's rediculous...  As basic lib i want it to be nice apealing 
and fonctional that's all i don't care since it's not flat and drak 
grey with 10 times the same widget that's ok with me ... (ok let 
say if i have to choose betwin having it flat  or having it dark 
grey i would choose having it flat)

Gregg sorry actually  i'm very very sick ... i spent past week after 
our interresting (what was the word damn ...) "flow of nonse" (maybe 
i don't remember and i'm too tired  to remember anything)  in bed 
spiting my pulmons to the floor...  so i think i'm out for another 
week and if eventually i'm not dead at the end of next week i will 
try to send some ideas .... but basically i would say if it's not 
dark grey and  flat it's ok will me .... we use AGG for the gob design 
and rendering this allow us some creazy stuff that will promote the 
new VID and make it apealing .... VID gui never seen before but not 
because they  are super ugly  and all childish with glowing primary 
colors ....

i can make a basic list of gobs i want 
treeview
menu bar
tab panel
menu popup

list  (for text images other gobs ?.... with resizable columns auto 
sort etc...)
checkbox /groups

radio button/ groups  ( in a group with many radio button only 1 
radio button can be activated at a time that's the difference with 
a checkbox group)
status bar
tools bar 
splitter bar (to separate elements and dynanmically resize time)

being able to have docking system  being able of having subwindows 
in the main windows then you can arrange the child windows easyly 
(one on top full, cascade, tiles etc...)


the graphical style should be pure enough to have an attractive look 
and a one eye shot notice and recognize style without looking kidish 
or like in 1979 first intent of  graphical interface made by Xeros 
labs in palo alto ....

think that agg can offert us really creazy effects motions shape 
changes solidity changes.... etc.... so for me the perfect gui Lib 
would play with those aspect in a clever way and maybe be the base 
for people to say ok .... and what if my next application would be 
a cloud ... a cloud have a non definited shape you can cut it in 
pieces than rearange those pieces you can make some part more dense 
some other part lighter   you can shrink it or completly change anytime 
it's shape .... the kind of interface that would be just  so fun 
to exploit use a multi touch screen ...

ok  see you next week maybe

Swine flu?

AdrianS, it's a little hard to work on that level right now, mainly 
because of the use of draw blocks which change all the time, and 
so a look would have to be constantly reimplemented, when things 
change in the UI system.

The current GUI style is just to see anything at all. Henrik has 
a concept how to decouple the decoration and look from the rest. 
We need to get this up & running in a way that it's not changing 
on a dayly base. Than we will release it and you can start doing 
all the nice GUI looks.

I understand that no significant effort has been spent on getting 
things to look sharp - I don't see why the people who are actually 
doing work feel the need to apologize or defend the current situation 
- I agree this is the way it has to be done. I was just wondering 
if, in parallel (and by people other than the developers), some artwork 
could be produced with various proposed looks for the UI. Having 
some artwork doesn't imply that a corresponding look has to be implemented. 
It's just something that people can look at.

I guess I'm just thinking that there should be as many looks as possible 
submitted for the community to decide on as the official, or one 
of the official looks.

This shouldn't distract from the GUI work being done in code, should 
it?

I'm just curious to see what the overall concensus would be here 
- there have been so many fads in UI design 3D, aqua-look, flat, 
etc. What is attractive now and for the medium term? Another thing 
I'd like to see are proposals that break away from the traditioanal 
and try to push the envelope. This could possibly involve the use 
of animation, 2 1/2 D, gestures (yes, I know you don't think much 
of  this kind of stuff Henrik :-) , but not in frivolous ways. Personally, 
I hate cluttered UIs that don't do anything to improve usability.

Defense of situation: Because the foremost thing that has been criticized, 
when posting screenshots is the appearance of the GUI, as I was experimenting 
with a skin early on, which was dropped. As creators of professional 
UI systems know, looks are secondary, while functionality and consistency 
is primary. This is a point, I've been trying to make with the VID 
Extension Kit.

The problem with creating artwork now is that there is not a good 
method to implement it, other than by having to get your hands dirty 
and write the styles. There's no easy way to shove photoshop images 
into the R3 GUI. Maybe that will happen at some point. Feel free 
to post imagery if you like, but I'm afraid it's a bit of a waste 
of time right now.

yeah, the way some people have worded things (don't want to name 
names, but we know who they are :-)  ), there was a critical tone 
- IMO, they missed the point of what was shown so far

Of course I don't expect that artwork can just be dropped in and 
we have a new look - I've done enough GUI work to know what the limitations 
can be. Still, even if the rendered look has to be reproduced programatically, 
there could be a benefit in starting to evaluate different proposals. 
A site like 99designs seems to be a pretty cheap way to get various 
ideas thrown around.

About UI fads, I have been contemplating various designs that are 
not typical, but with things like the iPhone out, it's very difficult 
to differentiate from that, in a way that makes the R3 GUI easily 
recognizable. I would like to make a GUI that one doesn't forget 
that they have seen, similar to when you saw or used OSX the first 
time. I'm fairly resourceful, when it comes to building consistent 
GUI artwork.


About animation and gestures: If this is done correctly, they can 
be added as subsystems of the GUI.

Our primary concern is that RM Asset needs to use R3 very soon for 
a production app for a customer, so the focus is to make all things 
that are normally handcranked in VID and RebGUI, such as form validation, 
handling of database records and a complete UI test framework fully 
automatic. If it takes 2 days instead of 7 to build and test a GUI, 
Robert saves money and can ship earlier.


Over the past year, with the rather big RebGUI app, NLPP, that RM 
Asset has built, we've learned exactly where we need to make things 
better and what works OK and certain delays, because of GUI architecture 
limitations have cost money. It's no longer for convenience or for 
advertizing the GUI as easy, but hard money savings are involved.

I'm not sure I follow this "It's no longer for convenience or for 
advertizing the GUI as easy" - so the current intent is to get something 
out the door as opposed to creating the easiest to use UI framework?

no, it's both things. The GUI system must be easy and quick to work 
with. That's how we build apps.

As such, what we're doing is also in your interest. :-)

and is much appreciated!

I think eye-candy is a very important aspect and, as Henrik said, 
making a GUI that is breathtaking and rememberable is a lot of work 
but worth doing it.

And we will come to it after the basic infrastructure is done and 
stablizes.

I think that if someone really wants, why not to post mock-ups? Even 
if those would not be implemented in the end? It would at least provoke 
some discussions. The design is always tricky - everyone of us has 
different taste for what looks cool, nice, or what actually looks 
ugly :-)