Hi Chris, and Ram,
First, welcome to the project :-). It's great to hear you're interested.
>> Among the other important stuff to do:
>> - Finishing ProjectManager, it's the basis of the WM that is supposed
>> to supercede Azalea and implement the project-orientation ideas. This
>> one is not currently listed on the Open Projects page. You need to
>> know/learn XCB though
>
> This one sounded interesting to me. I've tried reading some of the
> Etoile "vision" and "UI mockup" pages on the web site, which I think I
> understand a bit. Is someone able to explain what sort of components are
> involved in this piece of the project?
>
> From what I can work out:
> * ProjectManager is cross between a workspace and window manager. It
> manages a set of user-defined projects.
> * It has a window manager.
I would say there are two parts (which could probably be separate processes):
- the window manager. This is what David stated, and is in subversion at
trunk/Etoile/Services/Private/ProjectManager. It should be a simple XCB based
window manager, with compositing, shadows, and maybe some other visual effects.
It will only need to provide window decorations for non-GNUstep windows (e.g.
firefox) since GNUstep windows can handle that themselves.
- the thing that runs the Étoilé user interface, the "Project Manager" part. I
have less of a clear idea (both implementation and UI-wise) of what this should
be. It will interact closely with EtoileUI and CoreObject, though.
As an example, one way it could work is something like the Mac OS X
desktop/dock, except applications in Mac OS become projects in Étoilé, so
clicking on a dock icon brings all of the windows in a project to the front of
the screen. I think we can do better than this design, but it's one possible
starting place.
> I had more questions though:
> * How does a user create a new document? Is it a prototyping model,
> where they goto a toolbox and drag down a copy of a prototype? Maybe
> they take an existing document and copy it using some UI action? Maybe
> its simple like the Microsoft "New" context menu in Explorer? I got the
> impression that an application model, where the user starts up the
> application and selects "New Document", is (from what I've been reading
> on the web site) something you guys were trying to avoid)?
We're still at the UI drawing board stage. I think your suggestions are good
ideas.
> * Does the object model have a way of linking an object to its
> representation" in the UI i.e. given an object, how does ProjectManager
> know how to represent it on the screen as an icon or if it isn't open?
Yes. EtoileUI provides pluggable viewers/editors, and we will likely use UTI's
to choose which component to use for an object. Quentin talked a bit about the
problem here: http://www.mail-archive.com/etoile-dev@gna.org/msg00667.html
(from 2005 but still relevant :-)
> * Are projects just layed out on the screen as icons? Can a user
> organise a project hierarchically or in groups?
I don't think we have a fully fleshed-out UI design for this.
In terms of implementation we could allow hierarchical or grouped projects.
> * There didn't appear to be a space for something that represents
> stateful objects, like the list of online or offline buddies in the
> system or that new mail has arrived (I did notice the "People" tag
> though). Perhaps projects can have "notification objects" that don't
> necessarily store state but are like lists that match objects meeting
> certain criteria e.g. a list of all mail (new and read) that contains a
> keyword belonging to the project?
That's a good idea, it might be nice to have a particular mail folder
associated with a project, so when you are working in a 'personal' project,
receiving work-related mail creates a notification in your 'work' project
(which you might not want to see.)
I tend to interrupt whatever I'm doing when I get new mail - sometimes it's
important or relevant to what I'm doing, but usually it's unrelated and
something I didn't want to be bothered with.
> Any enlightenment about these questions would be appreciated, even if
> its just to clarify about the "vision" for Etoile.
>
Hope this helps!
Eric
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