On Wed, 2007-09-26 at 18:30 +0200, Tim Blechmann wrote:
> . i am curious, what other people think about these features ...
hi tim, hi phil and others
since i am running a quite outdated system (ubuntu dapper), i won't be
able to test nova myself, until i update my system (which probably
doesn't happen before summer 2008, when i'll have finished my diploma).
yo, i first i have to make clear, that tastes can differ heavily. what
you, phil, describe as 'pretty' or 'prettiered' is for me just the worst
case scenario. personally i love much pd's beatutiful plainness. since
it's something, that i am probably looking at everyday for some hours,
it cannot be plain enough for me. what i would like to have in nova is
definitely not a 'prettiered' gui, but rather some cool gui stuff
already built-in (envelope generators and stuff like this). i also
think, that i would have troubles reading a patch with all the curvy
cables all over the place.
for me, the appearance of pd reflects the fact, that it is quite a 'low
level' language, that can be used to program, not only just putting some
highlevel pieces together (unlike 'native instrument's reaktor), a patch
is for me a program, not just a set of modules put together (as a
reaktor patch). so for me a simple appearance is much more suitable in
the nova context, which i would wish to be a programming environment for
me. the cables in the 'prettiered' gui remind me much of the backside of
reasons racks and the whole appearance make me think of something like
'reaktor' rather than pd or max. and i also believe, that i am part of
majority, otherwise max/msp would look much more like 'prettiered gui',
i think.
my two cents: let's have a simple and clean gui.
> a few thoughts on the ideas:
>
> - gui objects should definitely provide some message handlers, that
> change their appearance in the patch ... maybe in a similar way, than it
> is done in pd (not sure how max handles this)
yeah, i think for the gui-objects, it would be cool to have all
propierties adjustable from nova itself (as in pd's iemguis). i also
think, that having a label for each guiclass, that can be adjusted from
nova itself is quite essential. pd does have it, but with some
restrictions: you cannot set labelnames, that have a whitespace in it.
> - however, non-gui objects (normal object boxes, connections) should
> follow one style, maybe the appearance can be changed from a property
> dialog, but it is not accessible from the dataflow language, which
> should basically be independent from the gui ...
agreed
> - i also don't really like the idea of having a nova patch, setting the
> preferences. i know, that some systems use this approach, but it is a
> bit contrary to the approach of having the nova language and the nova
> gui separated from each other. in terms of readability i would somehow
> prefer to use a configuration file (possibly xml) to store the gui
> preferences.
without beeing an expert at all, i think the same. i can only speak for
myself, but when working on projects, that require an interface, i
usually create a separate gui-patch, where you don't see any code at
all. since at the end only gui objects are visible anyway, because the
rest code is hidden in other subpatches, there would be no point in
having a settable appearance pd. so what nova tries to do with the
separation of language and the gui, is something, that i usually do as
well in my patches. following this idea, it wouldn't make sense to have
the appearance customizable from within nova. for me, the only reason to
adjust nova's appearance would be to improve patch readability, but
definitely not to design a patch, since in my opinion guiclasses should
be used for that.
yo, i hope i didn't talk bullshit here....
cheers
roman
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