Thank you R.E. Boss, my responses follow inline, > On Jul 30, 2017, at 8:19 AM, R.E. Boss <r.e.b...@outlook.com> wrote: > > Bob, > > I think your addon can be rather valuable, here are a few remarks. > First of all, my system hung the first time after I did 'v t8' just before > Ctrl J to advance, which apparently also did this. I had to cancel J with the > task manager (Win10, J805). > After restarting the Lab and jumping to chapter 6, three times Ctrl J brought > me tot End of Lab, which was not my intention. And I got other hang ups in > different circumstances, but I'm sorry to have no time to test it. >
There do seem to be some issues with the lab and the way that it runs on the Windows operating system. One question that I would like to know first is whether it is Jig that is creating the problem or interaction with the lab. I don't have access to a Windows machine or I would test it myself. I suppose that if I am going to develop tools in that environment I should address that issue myself, but for the time being it would be useful to know if Jig is hanging up when it interacts with the jqt ide alone. > The fact that the display of Jig is such that I always have to use the > sidebars is a nuisance IMO, perhaps you could locate the pop-up screens at > the right hand side or enlarge the initial screen. > I am guessing that you mean the slide bars that move the object around the display, so that you can view the tooltips. I agree with you, but I have not found a way to keep the tool tip bubble out in front of the object, especially when multiple levels of boxing are present in the object. SVG uses the 'painter's algorithm' and this means that the order of drawing determines what is in front and what is behind. It would be great if I could specify the z axis for these layers, but that is a common complaint and has not been addressed by SVG at this stage. > But what bothers me most is that you shift to much work to me as a user: I > have to remember color codes for the different data types (and other > mnemonics which I already forgot ...!) > This is a problem which is not unusual. Whereas computers are designed to > make life easier, the contrary is achieved (for example you are often > requested to use passwords with a lot of non-letters, whereas a long sentence > which is easy to remember for humans is a much better password, see also > https://xkcd.com/936/). > So, to be more specific, in the example of t1, why don’t you display 1b; 2; > 3j0; 4.0; 5x; 6r1 to indicate the Boolean, integer, complex, floating, > extended and rational number? > The only 'problem' is that 1b is an ill-formed number in J, where the others > are not, but within the scope of your addon that seems acceptable. I would certainly agree with you that I don't want to shift the load to the user. I would be doing that if I only indicated the types by the visual cues, but the types are always available by hovering. This means that at worst you would hover over the object to find the type and as you get more familiar with the visual language, you may not even have to do that. Your observation is entirely valid as a new user and perhaps I should emphasize that the information is available through the tooltips so that there is no need to memorize the different appearances. Thank you again for your observations. Please let me know if I have missed the point on any of these answers. Cheers, bob ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
