Marc Aylesworth wrote: > the whole reason for open source is for choices,
That is certainly part of it. The essence of it to me is freedom of information, particularly of the deep knowledge necessary to keep vital systems like VistA viable and moving forward with new technology. > there should not be replacement but supplement of user interfaces >so that someone can choose the best interface that fits his/her situation. Certainly, the challenge at this point is to construct a complete non-CHUI interface to VistA so that potential users can choose a richer user interface than can be provided by a VT100 terminal. >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Greg >Woodhouse >Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 6:33 PM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] Migrating vista console module routines to >cleint side GUIs > >I think a big part of the problem is that we're speaking as if GUI >interfaces can all be lumped together as one user interface style. We Lumping GUI interfaces together as a matter of style seems like an obvious misconception. The major distinction between GUI and CHUI is simply that CHUI displays are limited to an array of character cells where GUI displays are based on pixels. GUI has a more fundamental and general basis so that CHUI (terminal emulators for instance) can be represented within GUI. >all quietly accept that roll and scroll is one style of character based >user interface, but no one stops to consider whether there aer >different styles of GUI interfaces? I would think that most people would be aware of major differences in user interface style even just within web interfaces. And of course, not all web browsers are GUI. There are some very capable CHUI web browsers, they just can't represent images as well as GUI browsers directly. Some can represent images as ASCII art or they can call helper applications to display images separately. Web interfaces should be considered a separate category independent of GUI and CHUI. The essential features of web applications are simply HTML and HTTP. The choice between roll-and-scroll and other styles or modes of interaction does not have to be all or nothing in either GUI or CHUI. One of the first things I did in defining a CHUI for VMACS twenty something years ago was to restrict roll-and-scroll interactions from touching regions of the VT display reserved for input forms, menus, and status indicators. This allowed us to use features from classic fileman within a more sophisticated and higher performance overall CHUI user interface. Another example is the web based command shell in M2Web. That combines some of the best features of roll-and-scroll with the richer interface capabilities of a web browser. You submit command lines from a text input field (or textarea for multiple command lines). There is a dropdown list that can be used to insert items from your command history into the text field. When you submit a command, the text of it is appended to your results history followed by any output it produces in plain text or HTML (including graphics, tables, hypertext, input forms, Javascript, etc). Each item in the results history can be collapsed or individually removed so that the display is not dominated by long listings or output that is no longer interesting. --------------------------------------- Jim Self Systems Architect, Lead Developer VMTH Computer Services, UC Davis (http://www.vmth.ucdavis.edu/us/jaself) --------------------------------------- M2Web Demonstration with VistA (http://vista.vmth.ucdavis.edu/) (http://openforum.worldvista.org/~forum/m.cgi) --------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
