On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 8:34 AM, J.F. Rick <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 11:45 PM Ben Coman <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> So morphic has a Z-order but I think not a Z-depth. Is that be >> something we should be aiming for? > > > In HTML5, Z-depth is pretty exclusively used as a mechanism to determine > Z-order in the HTML / CSS separation. Normally, the order of HTML determines > the Z-order. But, Z-order is really a style thing, rather than a composition > thing. So, specifying the Z-depth allows you to override standard behavior > in the style sheet. This is not necessary in a true object-based GUI where > graphical objects are more self contained and can easily determine their own > Z-order. > > I doubt we will see general purpose adoption of any 2D interface that will > rely on Z-depth for anything besides determining Z-order. For instance, the > example of shadow size seems interesting but runs into usability problems > quickly. Let's say that you have element A with a larger shadow to indicate > that it is above element B with a smaller shadow. That seems great. What > happens if element B is selected and brought to the forefront? Does A's > shadow go down in size? If so, that breaks the normal shadow analogy. If > not, it would seem that the shadows would just keep growing bigger each time > a new element is brought to the front. For limited general-purpose > applications (e.g., a larger shadow for an object currently being dragged), > you don't need Z-depth info. For specialized applications where a Z-depth > might make sense (I can't even think of one), there's little problem adding > such functionality to custom widgets. So, my recommendations is to stay away > from trying to implement Z-depth as a fundamental component of a 2D > interface. The benefit is minimal and largely theoretical. > > Cheers, > > Jeff
Thats a fair argument, thanks Jeff. I guess if someone wanted different size shadows for different z-order, a fixed distance between levels could be simulated with all windows shuffling down when a window is brought to the top. cheers -ben
