On Apr 1, 2006, at 3:51 PM, Henry Minsky wrote: > > > It will mean a change from the current way we implement some > features, such as text font/size/style, since they are presently > individual attributes of text, not properties of a single style > attribute. > > > Yeah, what are the implications of changing that. Should we try to > have some intermediate support for the current mechanism for > setting font size/style/name directly on a text object and also on > a style object? We could have a backward compatible API for a while. >
I would like to see us develop a model which encourages dealing with typography as sets of related characteristics. I would be happy to see the API for setting font characteristics separately go away. Professional visual design generally uses just a few combinations of font color/size/weight/family in an entire document; our model should make it easy to make things look good, and hard or impossible to make things look bad. HTML and Microsoft Word made it too easy to use too many text effects. I almost always prefer a simple dignified typewritten or LaTex document to the insanity of freshmen and programmers set loose with too much typographic freedom. One of the Laszlo Systems visual designers, Peter Andrea, posted a rant on web design awards which is worth reading: http://laszlomail.com/blog/2006/02/10/state-of-the-art-in-graphic- design/ "Each of the sites he has chosen to represent utilizes conventions in color, layout, typography, and hierarchical structure that are the centuries-old foundation of print design. For proof, take a spread from any contemporary magazine, and compare it to the screen grabs… I would argue that 9 times out of 10, you will find the printed page to be superior in every respect." The ability to set font size/style/name/color directly via separate API calls is necessary for making a rich text editor, but that's a little tiny subset of "things we want to do with text." benjamin shine software engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Laszlo-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.openlaszlo.org/mailman/listinfo/laszlo-dev
