Re: [rgui-dev] Form vs. Function

[Tom Sawyer]

Massimiliano-

just had a notion about Form vs Function.

you were talking about not being a typesetter, so to speak, as applied
to GUI creation, correct? i was wondering to what extent we could build
gui-intelligence into GUtopIa for automatic GUI creation?

at the absolute highest level we would want to be able to feed GUtopIa
the logic-model (core-app) and presto! out comes a fully made GUI. of
course, this level of intelligence is about impossible. it wouldn't even
be reasonable for a human to do, outside the core-app's developer. so
some hints, at least, need to be specified.

and so, that's kind of the notion i'm having. granted that without any
hints whatesoever, GUtopIa will do a really crapy job of automatically
generating a GUI, but that's okay becasue the more hints we give it, the
closer it will get to a better design. are you following me here?

in other words, what if we created a gui-template markup, such that it
doesn't require you to be fully explicit, and GUtopIa fills in the
holes. of course you *could* define every last detail in order to
completely control the layout if you wanted. the beauty of this is that
one can then be as much or as little of a "gui-typesetter" as required
to produce useful results. and of course the better we made GUtopIa's
"Hueristc-Infrence Engine" the less one would need to be the typesetter.

of course, don't ask me how we'd implement such a thing. at this point i
have no idea.

thoughts?

-tom







On Fri, 2002-09-06 at 01:20, Tom Sawyer wrote:
> been working on the categories. not finished yet, but take a look:
> 
>   http://www.rubygui.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?GUtopIa_Meta-Components
> 
> of course none of this has yet been implemented in the code base.
> 
> -tom
> 
> p.s. the notebook and multi-tab are the same things, just different
> names. perhaps MultiTab would be a better class name.
> 
> 
> On Sun, 2002-09-01 at 12:09, Kero van Gelder wrote:
> > > in light of massimilino's idea i have taken an initial stab at the
> > > "Classes of Widgetability". forgive the silly overuse of -able :) so,
> > > what have i missed? are there otherway to categorize this?
> > 
> > Showable
> > 
> >   shows text or figures or whatever
> > 
> >   Examples
> >     Label
> >     Canvas
> >     ...
> >     basically everything but plain Windows (that only provide space)
> > 
> > 
> > Clickable
> > 
> >   passes an explicit event to some external (non-GUI) code
> > 
> >   Examples
> >     Button
> > 
> > 
> > > Editable
> > > 
> > >   text entry
> > > 
> > >   Examples:
> > >     Gtk::Entry
> > >     Gtk::Text
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Selectable
> > > 
> > >   select from a list.
> > select one from a series...
> > 
> > >   (note: could have multiple columns)
> > >   
> > >   Examples:
> > >     Gtk::List  (w/ singal selection)
> > >     Gtk::Combo (w/ read only)
> > >     GUtopIa::RadioBox
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Multi-Selectable
> > >   
> > >   select a number of possibilites from a list
> > >   (note: could have multiple columns)
> > >   
> > >   Examples:
> > >     Gtk::List (w/ multi selection)
> > >     GUtopIa::CheckBox
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Editable & Selectable
> > 
> > That sounds odd, since you mentioned them separately...
> > 
> > >   can be selected from list and/or edited
> > > 
> > >   Examples:
> > >     Gtk::Combo
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Switchable
> > > 
> > >   on/off, true/false binary input
> > 
> > == Rangeable, over [true, false]
> > == Selectable, with only two options.
> > 
> > I'm not saying we don't need another widget/layout, but it could be
> > fancy dressing for certain (most?) style sheets.
> > 
> > >   Examples:
> > >     Gtk::Check
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Rangeable
> > > 
> > >   specific means for inputing a numerical value within a range
> > > 
> > >   Examples:
> > >     Gtk::ScrollBar
> >       Slider
> >       Entry
> > 
> > == Selectable, due to the range :)  (I'm kidding, here)
> > 
> > 
> > > Sectionable
> > > 
> > >   provides seperate areas of layout
> > >   
> > >   Examples:
> > >     Gtk::Window
> > >     Gtk::Notebook
> >       Multi-Tab environment
> > 
> > Dunno what the notebook is, but I suppose it has a horizontal or
> > vertical separator that the end-user can move. This is lacking in
> > older toolkits, I think. Otoh, this is layout mgmt, so we may well
> > need a sligtly different abstraction.
> > 
> > What is the place of the layout manager?
> > 
> > +--- Kero ------------------------------ address@hidden ---+
> > |  Don't split your mentality without thinking twice       |
> > |                          Proud like a God -- Guano Apes  |
> > +--- M38c ---------- http://httpd.chello.nl/k.vangelder ---+
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Gutopia-dev mailing list
> > address@hidden
> > http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/gutopia-dev
> > 
> -- 
> tom sawyer, aka transami
> address@hidden
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
tom sawyer, aka transami
address@hidden