Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

waldo kitty wrote:
> 
> not that that is "our problem" or not...


Very true, so we leave it at that!  :)


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[waldo kitty]

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

waldo kitty wrote:

yeah, that was already mentioned... but no one mentioned that the RED
one isn't really red, either... it looks like dark charcoal over
here...


It's red, but simply not a bright red. Instead they choose a dark red
which is a lot more readable on a white background compared to bright red.


FWIW: dark red is more easily seen as a shade of red than that which was 
shown... again, as stated above, all views of the related communication box were 
not "red" with regard to that combobox...


not that that is "our problem" or not...

FWIW^2: yes, my monitor is calibrated as are all of my printers and they all 
showed and printed the same non-red charcoal color...


again, :sigh:... apparently not our problem since it is not a dialogue generated 
by out code ;) :? :(


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

waldo kitty wrote:
> 
> yeah, that was already mentioned... but no one mentioned that the RED
> one isn't really red, either... it looks like dark charcoal over
> here...

It's red, but simply not a bright red. Instead they choose a dark red
which is a lot more readable on a white background compared to bright red.


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[waldo kitty]

theo wrote:

Unfortunately this brings up the idea of "aesthetic",
Consider the Preferences dialog in Mac Leopard's Mail client:



http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/mail_prefs.jpg 




I don't think this dialog has a lot do to with "aesthetic".


i'm not posting this in defense but...


It looks cheap to me. The Icons look like randomly collected from the net.
No common height or color style, strange vertical alignment (see RSS).


the RSS icon has a shadow under it... obviously it is part of the graphic... a 
few others also have similar shadow... i do agree that the icons are not as 
uniform as they should/could be ;)



Vertical alignment is almost inexistent anyway.
Look at the checkboxes vs. the comboboxes.
comboboxes blue green red don't even have the same distance


yeah, that was already mentioned... but no one mentioned that the RED one isn't 
really red, either... it looks like dark charcoal over here...



Nah, really... ;-)


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Phil Hess]

Here's Firefox 3.5's Preferences dialog on Mac:

http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/firefox_prefs.jpg

Two things about the GTK2 prefs dialog on Firefox:

- The brown background is not flattering.

- The underlined shortcut keys - that's really an atavism. I think Windows has 
the right approach in only displaying the underlined char when you press the 
Alt key.

The GTK2 glyphs look a bit cheesy too. Not sure why they didn't just use the 
same glyphs they used on Mac.

Thanks.

-Phil


- "Henry Vermaak"  wrote:

> 2009/11/13 Graeme Geldenhuys :
> > 2009/11/13 Phil Hess :
> >>
> >> Consider the Preferences dialog in Mac Leopard's Mail client:
> >>
> >>
> http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/mail_prefs.jpg
> >
> > Did you notice the "color quoted text" comboboxes in the lower left
> > are not equally spaced. I gather that is not an app shipped by
> Apple?
> > Otherwise there QA departments needs a talk. :)
> 
> Sheesh, and they've misspelt "colours" ;)  Here's firefox on gtk2
> with
> randomly sized buttons:
> 
> http://imagebin.org/71597
> 
> Henry
> 
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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[theo]

> Unfortunately this brings up the idea of "aesthetic",
> Consider the Preferences dialog in Mac Leopard's Mail client:

> http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/mail_prefs.jpg 
> 


I don't think this dialog has a lot do to with "aesthetic".

It looks cheap to me. The Icons look like randomly collected from the net.
No common height or color style, strange vertical alignment (see RSS).

Vertical alignment is almost inexistent anyway.
Look at the checkboxes vs. the comboboxes.
comboboxes blue green red don't even have the same distance

Nah, really... ;-)


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Henry Vermaak]

2009/11/14 Graeme Geldenhuys :
> 2009/11/14 Henry Vermaak :
>>  Here's firefox on gtk2 with randomly sized buttons:
>
> I simply can't get used to the "chocolate" brown colour theme of
> Ubuntu. After a new install, that is the first thing I change.

Yeah, that's my wife's laptop.  Something to do with chocolate, no doubt :)

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:


After creating as many components as I have in fpGUI, I got accustomed
to the idea of paying attention to detail. Lazarus IDE dialogs are a
*real* eye-soar for me.


Strange, I noticed the same just today in another dialog :-(

When I come across it again in my IDE experiments, I'll update such 
ravioli GUI to something more regular.


DoDi

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

2009/11/14 Henry Vermaak :
>
> Sheesh, and they've misspelt "colours" ;)

:-)


>  Here's firefox on gtk2 with randomly sized buttons:

I simply can't get used to the "chocolate" brown colour theme of
Ubuntu. After a new install, that is the first thing I change.



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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

2009/11/13 Phil Hess :
> Good eye! No, this is the OS X Mail client.

After creating as many components as I have in fpGUI, I got accustomed
to the idea of paying attention to detail. Lazarus IDE dialogs are a
*real* eye-soar for me. But after using Lazarus for so long, I got
used to them. ;-)


> I think one of the things that make the Mac pleasing is that it appears

They seem to align things quite well also. Good vertical lines and not
to many in each form.


> It would be interesting to compare how this dialog looks in other locales to 
> see whether they stayed with this fairly "light" approach.
>

That would be good to see. Many languages are longer in text than
English. Afrikaans, my other native language is on average 80% longer
than the same English text. This makes designing dialogs quite
difficult - knowing that you must always leave enough horizontal space
for components to grow.


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Henry Vermaak]

2009/11/13 Graeme Geldenhuys :
> 2009/11/13 Phil Hess :
>>
>> Consider the Preferences dialog in Mac Leopard's Mail client:
>>
>> http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/mail_prefs.jpg
>
> Did you notice the "color quoted text" comboboxes in the lower left
> are not equally spaced. I gather that is not an app shipped by Apple?
> Otherwise there QA departments needs a talk. :)

Sheesh, and they've misspelt "colours" ;)  Here's firefox on gtk2 with
randomly sized buttons:

http://imagebin.org/71597

Henry

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Phil Hess]

Good eye! No, this is the OS X Mail client.

I think one of the things that make the Mac pleasing is that it appears as 
though their aesthetic includes the injection of just a tiny bit of, well, joy 
for lack of a better word.

Examples with the Mail dialog:

Note that the title of this panel is "Fonts & Colors". In English an ampersand 
almost almost suggests informality. A Windows programmer might have used "Fonts 
and Colors"; a Linux programmer maybe "Fonts / Colors".

The glyphs are generally amusing too. I like the General and the Rules glyphs. 
Very memorable.

And the first time I saw the "Marker Felt" font it made me smile, which is 
probably the idea behind selecting it as a default font.

Also, color is used judiciously, but it's not a candy store. Note the choice of 
purple for the help button - this is a color you don't see much in dialogs, 
where reds, green, blues and grays seem to be the common colors.

It would be interesting to compare how this dialog looks in other locales to 
see whether they stayed with this fairly "light" approach.

Thanks.

-Phil



- "Graeme Geldenhuys"  wrote:

> 2009/11/13 Phil Hess :
> >
> > Consider the Preferences dialog in Mac Leopard's Mail client:
> >
> >
> http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/mail_prefs.jpg
> 
> Did you notice the "color quoted text" comboboxes in the lower left
> are not equally spaced. I gather that is not an app shipped by Apple?
> Otherwise there QA departments needs a talk. :)
> 
> Overall I agree, Mac's design and layout is very pleasing to the eye.
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
>   - Graeme -
> 
> 
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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

2009/11/13 Phil Hess :
>
> Consider the Preferences dialog in Mac Leopard's Mail client:
>
> http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/mail_prefs.jpg

Did you notice the "color quoted text" comboboxes in the lower left
are not equally spaced. I gather that is not an app shipped by Apple?
Otherwise there QA departments needs a talk. :)

Overall I agree, Mac's design and layout is very pleasing to the eye.

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009, Phil Hess wrote:


I thought the default look of Ext JS was an improvement over the qooxdoo 
JavaScript widgets used by Delphi for PHP.


Looks: yes, absolutely - it looks fresh and modern.

Layout: Not so good. 
The toolkits behaviour when adding html and resizing the browser window is not so good :(


Michael.


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Phil Hess]

I thought the default look of Ext JS was an improvement over the qooxdoo 
JavaScript widgets used by Delphi for PHP.

Thanks.

-Phil

- "Michael Van Canneyt"  wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Nov 2009, Hess, Philip J wrote:
> 
> >
> > 
> > From: Hans-Peter Diettrich [drdiettri...@aol.com]
> > Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 6:14 AM
> > To: grae...@opensoft.homeip.net; Lazarus mailing list
> > Subject: Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re:  Lazarus Goal]
> >
> >> This is an argument for a Web (Delphi IntraWeb?) layout, portable
> across
> >> platforms, because it doesn't rely on any platform specific
> conventions
> >
> > "There's an app for that":
> >
> > http://code.google.com/p/extpascal/
> 
> Correct and it is a good tool.
> 
> But the layouting in ExtJs (and hence ExtPascal) leaves to be desired
> :(
> 
> Michael.
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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009, Hess, Philip J wrote:




From: Hans-Peter Diettrich [drdiettri...@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 6:14 AM
To: grae...@opensoft.homeip.net; Lazarus mailing list
Subject: Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re:  Lazarus Goal]


This is an argument for a Web (Delphi IntraWeb?) layout, portable across
platforms, because it doesn't rely on any platform specific conventions


"There's an app for that":

http://code.google.com/p/extpascal/


Correct and it is a good tool.

But the layouting in ExtJs (and hence ExtPascal) leaves to be desired :(

Michael.

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Phil Hess]

There's a bit more to UI design than layouts. Unfortunately this brings up the 
idea of "aesthetic", something that many developers are vocally uncomfortable 
with (i.e. challenged).

Consider the Preferences dialog in Mac Leopard's Mail client:

http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/mail_prefs.jpg

First look at the controls themselves. The glyphs at the top operate exactly 
like a TPageControl. Only it doesn't look anything like a TPageControl. 
Consider the history of the tabbed control. The first one I can recall was in 
IBM's OS/2, which looked exactly like a schoolchild's spiral notebook, with the 
spiral (wire) on the left and tabs on the right. When Microsoft added this to 
Windows, they got rid of the spiral and moved the tabs to the top, making them 
resemble corporate file folders. Now we have Apple's latest take on this. And 
what does it look like? Well, no metaphor or analogy comes to mind, but it 
certainly is something that any schoolchild could figure out how to use.

Note some characteristics of this dialog:

- Both glyph and text at the top so you don't have to puzzle out the glyphs or 
wait for some hint to pop up. Often Apple makes this optional, so you can 
choose to show just glyphs, just text, or the default, both.

- No Cancel or Close button. Apple seems to be moving away from what they 
standardized, which is the dialog that has OK/Cancel buttons or a Done/Close 
button. In this dialog, Cancel doesn't make sense since any change you make is 
immediately applied and reflected in the underlying app. Lazarus has a dialog 
like this (Project Inspector) where changes are applied immediately. However, 
in both cases I wouldn't mind seeing a Done button - clicking the close box 
always makes me wonder whether I'll lose my changes.

- Help button stands out yet doesn't intrude, doesn't take up much space.

- Button to the right of text are clearly labeled "Select" so nothing is left 
to chance. In Lazarus Compiler Options dialog, there are similar buttons, 
although labeled only with an ellipsis (...) - not quite as clear, particularly 
as there's plenty of space to widen the buttons and put a decent label on them.

I would submit that there is an operational aesthetic at work here in Apple's 
dialog, in addition to great looking controls.

Speaking of controls, one question that comes to mind is whether you could 
design a dialog like this in Lazarus.

I tend to design dialogs in what might be called the style of "VCL Gothic". 
Lazarus is like that too. That is, most dialogs are modal, most have OK/Cancel 
buttons in lower-right, etc. Right out of Delphi.

3 examples of the same dialog with different widgetsets:

http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/lcl_win32.jpg

http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/lcl_carbon.jpg

http://web.fastermac.net/~MacPgmr/Lazarus/Screenshots/lcl_gtk2.jpg

I like the look of all 3 of these (VCL Gothic aesthetic). There are some 
differences, though. For example, the Arial font on Carbon seems to be a bit 
wider than Windows' Arial and the font substituted for Arial by GTK2. And with 
the TCheckListBox at the top, you can't specify a horizontal scroll bar, yet 
GTK2 adds one anyway, apparently determining (correctly) that one of the items 
further down in the list is too long for the horizontal space.

But does any of these really look like a dialog you would find in Mac software? 
I would say no - they look like VCL dialogs ported to Mac.

Thanks.

-Phil



- "Philip J Hess"  wrote:

> 
> From: Hans-Peter Diettrich [drdiettri...@aol.com]
> Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 6:14 AM
> To: grae...@opensoft.homeip.net; Lazarus mailing list
> Subject: Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re:  Lazarus Goal]
> 
> >This is an argument for a Web (Delphi IntraWeb?) layout, portable
> across
> >platforms, because it doesn't rely on any platform specific
> conventions
> 
> "There's an app for that":
> 
> http://code.google.com/p/extpascal/
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> -Phil
> 
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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Hess, Philip J]

From: Hans-Peter Diettrich [drdiettri...@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 6:14 AM
To: grae...@opensoft.homeip.net; Lazarus mailing list
Subject: Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re:  Lazarus Goal]

>This is an argument for a Web (Delphi IntraWeb?) layout, portable across
>platforms, because it doesn't rely on any platform specific conventions

"There's an app for that":

http://code.google.com/p/extpascal/

Thanks.

-Phil

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Juha Manninen]

> My co-workers hate touching my computer, because I have my keyboard set
> to Dvorak, but the actual keyboard keys-caps are still in QWERTY. 

That is geeky, I must say. Wow!

Juha

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:


Some quick examples were applications don't follow the "look & feel"
rules of the platform, yet users have no problems in using them.

* Windows Media Player.


I cannot use the media player or media center, due to its aberration 
from any application look&feel. Somebody else may be happy to use his 
computer like an CD/DVD player, but I had to buy an DVD player first, so 
that I could read how to use it :-(



* latest Microsoft Office with it's new menu+toolbar design
* Pixel image editor. It fakes native look. But looking closer at it, it
is quite different to native platforms, yet users don't seem to have any
issue with using it.


Dunno what you mean, never used newer versions of such tools.


* And the biggest one of them all. The INTERNET. Websites and Web
Applications like Gmail, Facebook etc... It adheres to NO single
platform, yet billions of users use the internet every day and don't
have problems using it. If you can read the screen, you can use the
interface.


This is an argument for a Web (Delphi IntraWeb?) layout, portable across 
platforms, because it doesn't rely on any platform specific conventions 
- except for the framework and interaction between multiple pages 
(application forms). We might have to rethink the entire application 
GUI, so that e.g. the placement of menus or other panes can be changed 
by a simple exchange of a CSS, on every platform, by every user. The 
same for themes, now also configurable by CSS.


DoDi


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Florian Klaempfl wrote:
> 
> Or do you look at each key before you press it :)?


OK, you got me on that one. :-)

My co-workers hate touching my computer, because I have my keyboard set
to Dvorak, but the actual keyboard keys-caps are still in QWERTY.  They
say I have the best password protection system installed. Even if I tell
them my password, they can't type it (not without HUGE effort).  :)



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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Florian Klaempfl]

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:
> Florian Klaempfl wrote:
>> Not me ;) E.g. I really hate systems which have switched Ok/Cancel buttons.
> 
> Ah, so you are one of "those" users... that don't read the screen and
> only rely on muscle memory. :-)

Yes, because it's quicker. Or do you look at each key before you press
it :)?

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Henry Vermaak]

2009/11/13 Graeme Geldenhuys :
> Florian Klaempfl wrote:
>>
>> Not me ;) E.g. I really hate systems which have switched Ok/Cancel buttons.
>
> Ah, so you are one of "those" users... that don't read the screen and
> only rely on muscle memory. :-)

Reflex is orders of a magnitude quicker than reading and thinking.
And reading and thinking wastes a lot of brain power (which I already
have very little of).  I still hit /something or * before I
can think "crap, I'm in Lazarus now, not vi".

Henry

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Martin]

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

So in such a case, the average user has no problem in using our fpGUI
based applications.
  
ok, in my original post I did not mean to impugn fpGUI or anything like 
this (I haven't event tested it yet). And even lazarus allows you to 
modify, colors, sizes and fonts to the point of unrecognisably.


A button as long as graphically well presented, is probably always easy 
to find. A form close button that resides in the lower, left corner 
(instead of upper right) is probably  not helpful at all.


Yet even the menu layout between a mac, and a windows PC may be 
confusing to some people  (I don't have a Mac but apparently some 
entries are differently placed (like about) and at least on older Macs 
(in the 80ties or 90ties) Menus, where always on the top of the screen 
(like a toolbar), even if the window was not maximized (menus where not 
part of the window).
Sure most people will find out quickly, and learn, but even then it is a 
habit breaker. You first move the mouse to where you expect the menu, 
not to where it is. (That is exactly why emacs is such a problem, every 
single key-shortcut is different, even copy and paste; oh yes I do use 
emacs but it took time)


If it is only looks that differ (color, maybe slight differences in size 
or border width) it will probably not be a problem at all.


If it is more, like layout it becomes irritating. A gtk user may be very 
used to have a dropdown that allocates the full height of the screen 
(given it has enough entry), this gtk user will be highly irritated, if 
only 8 entries at a time are displayed, and he has to scroll all the 
time . He will be able do to it. But he may miss the comfort (comfort = 
what he is used too)...


And so on

Martin

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Florian Klaempfl wrote:
> 
> Not me ;) E.g. I really hate systems which have switched Ok/Cancel buttons.

Ah, so you are one of "those" users... that don't read the screen and
only rely on muscle memory. :-)

Hopefully once I have completed to port of MiG layout, that issue would
be a thing of the past as well - in fpGUI at least.


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Florian Klaempfl]

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:
> Martin wrote:
>> 2) is what Java and fpgui (and afaik msegui) aim for. It is easier
>> for the developper. But the enduser will find an application that is
>>  different to any other app he runs on his PC (and therefore harder
>> to use)
> 
> I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the part that it's harder
> to use. :-)  Users are not as dumb and inflexible as most developers
> make them out to be. End-users can adapt quite easily.

Not me ;) E.g. I really hate systems which have switched Ok/Cancel buttons.

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

David Emerson wrote:
> * almost any antivirus / antispyware program

:-)  Now that's a good example of awful UI design!  I wonder if they
actually employee UI designers to purposefully screw the living crap out
of their products UI to make cleaning your Windows PC from viruses any
harder.


> The best broad example I can think of that may be in agreement with what 
> you're suggesting is SymphonyOS and the Mezzo ui.

OK, based on your examples, I probably had to be a lot more clearer
about what I meant. I did not mean, radical changes to UI, I simply
meant the idea of having a Button or ComboBox in a UI that maybe doesn'
look 100% like the native one, but for all intense purposes does the
same think as the native Button or Combobox. Even thought it might look
slightly different (or un-themed).

This is what we are doing with fpGUI in our products. The look and feel
of our applications are consistent on each platform. But it might not
look identical to the native widgets of that platform. But clicking a
button or selecting a menu item from the main menu back is exactly the
same process in fpGUI applications as they are with native applications.

So in such a case, the average user has no problem in using our fpGUI
based applications.

Regards,
  - Graeme -

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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[David Emerson]

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
> Some quick examples were applications don't follow the "look & feel"
> rules of the platform, yet users have no problems in using them.
> 
> * Windows Media Player.
> * latest Microsoft Office with it's new menu+toolbar design
> * Pixel image editor. It fakes native look. But looking closer at it,
> it is quite different to native platforms, yet users don't seem to
> have any issue with using it.
> * And the biggest one of them all. The INTERNET. Websites and Web
> Applications like Gmail, Facebook etc... It adheres to NO single
> platform, yet billions of users use the internet every day and don't
> have problems using it. If you can read the screen, you can use the
> interface.

I suspect these are the exceptions, rather than the rule. The vast 
majority of the time I am presented with a non-standard interface, I 
find it to be awkward and difficult to use, and it doesn't usually get 
any better from there. A few examples that come to mind:

* anything by hp (printer/scanner software in particular)
* non-standard installer programs (thinking of hp again)
* vi
* emacs
* the earthlink totalaccess toolbar
* almost any antivirus / antispyware program

...there are many others, but it's hard for me to think of them because 
I don't use them!

The best broad example I can think of that may be in agreement with what 
you're suggesting is SymphonyOS and the Mezzo ui. I thought it was very 
cool when I first learned about it in 2006, but it looks like the 
project has been abandoned. I've got this "MezzoGreyPaper.pdf" here, 
but I can't find a working link to it. It's almost like it disappeared 
off the internet... very strange.

Cheers,
David


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Martin]

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

Martin wrote:
  

2) is what Java and fpgui (and afaik msegui) aim for. It is easier
for the developper. But the enduser will find an application that is
 different to any other app he runs on his PC (and therefore harder
to use)



I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the part that it's harder
to use. :-)  Users are not as dumb and inflexible as most developers
make them out to be. End-users can adapt quite easily.

Some quick examples were applications don't follow the "look & feel"
rules of the platform, yet users have no problems in using them.

* Windows Media Player.
* latest Microsoft Office with it's new menu+toolbar design
* Pixel image editor. It fakes native look. But looking closer at it, it
is quite different to native platforms, yet users don't seem to have any
issue with using it.
* And the biggest one of them all. The INTERNET. Websites and Web
Applications like Gmail, Facebook etc... It adheres to NO single
platform, yet billions of users use the internet every day and don't
have problems using it. If you can read the screen, you can use the
interface.
I happen to know those users you do not name. Example: Learned IE, now 
struggling with firefox.


But the very best (and it is a true story, I happened to witness myself: 
A user who had only learned one (custom, none standard interface) only 
keyboard driven application (which was at his place of work).
This users happened to accidentally touch the mouse, and click the 
desktop. After that the application he used no longer responded to 
keystrokes. He called tech support, reporting his PC had crashed.


Those users exist too.

But of course, user interface is more that just using a specific set of 
widgets. And of course a custom widget set, with a well thought through 
command hierachy, offering the propper commonds at the right time, is a 
hundred times better than using the default widgets, but throwing all 
available commands into one or 2 unsorted menus.


Martin






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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Martin wrote:
> 2) is what Java and fpgui (and afaik msegui) aim for. It is easier
> for the developper. But the enduser will find an application that is
>  different to any other app he runs on his PC (and therefore harder
> to use)

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the part that it's harder
to use. :-)  Users are not as dumb and inflexible as most developers
make them out to be. End-users can adapt quite easily.

Some quick examples were applications don't follow the "look & feel"
rules of the platform, yet users have no problems in using them.

* Windows Media Player.
* latest Microsoft Office with it's new menu+toolbar design
* Pixel image editor. It fakes native look. But looking closer at it, it
is quite different to native platforms, yet users don't seem to have any
issue with using it.
* And the biggest one of them all. The INTERNET. Websites and Web
Applications like Gmail, Facebook etc... It adheres to NO single
platform, yet billions of users use the internet every day and don't
have problems using it. If you can read the screen, you can use the
interface.


Regards,
  - Graeme -

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http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/


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Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Bee Jay]

Well the understanding of cross platform is quite varying. The base  
obviously is that "one source code" can be executed on all of the  
supported platforms.


In my understanding, there are 3 kinds of cross platform implementation:

1. Cross platform is implemented within an virtual environment both  
the binary and the widgets. The application is run on top of it. The  
example is Java.
2. Cross platform is implemented in full native ways both in the  
binary and the widgets. The application is truly native application on  
each platform. The example is FPC/Lazarus.
3. Cross platform is implemented natively on the binary but not on the  
widgets. The application execute natively without any virtual  
environment but it losses its native look-and-feel (or at best,  
emulated). The example is fpGUI, mseGUI, Qt, etc.


Since FPC/Lazarus in on the second type of implementation, we (both  
the developers and users) should be aware (and understood) of  
consequences of the approach. Expecting FPC/Lazarus to act like the  
first type of implementation is ridiculous. This is what the thread  
starter didn't understand on the first place, and blaming it on  
approach taken by FPC/Lazarus.


1) is what the LCL aims for. It is more enduser friendly, but  
requires more work by the developper


Yes. Ideally, again I said ideally which mean it hardly can be  
achieved, we (developers) should fullfil anything our users want.  
Whether it's difficult or not, it should be our problems, not theirs,  
because the users who pay the bill. Sometimes we and our users make  
some compromises for whatever reasons. :)


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[Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]

[Martin]

Bee Jay wrote:
'Lazarus and Free Pascal aim to be write once, compile anywhere for 
those
programs which only use the supported operating system features that 
share a

common design'.


And I would've thought that this was obvious. There are just some
things you cannot abstract/emulate.


Exactly. Even those platforms don't have same thought about what is 
"common". What Java does is nothing more than standarized the "common" 
things within its own environment. But, whether it's common to the 
native platform, it's very much questionable. Obviously he can't see 
the obvious.


Well the understanding of cross platform is quite varying. The base 
obviously is that "one source code" can be executed on all of the 
supported platforms.


On top of this, there are at least 2 different understanding:
1) the application looks/feels like any application on that platform, it 
uses the platforms widgets, and the guidelines for the platform.
This means that the qpplication will look and feel different on every 
platform


2) The application looks and ffels the same on all platforms. It 
completely ignores the guidelines and standards of the platform



1) is what the LCL aims for. It is more enduser friendly, but requires 
more work by the developper
2) is what Java and fpgui (and afaik msegui) aim for. It is easier for 
the developper. But the enduser will find an application that is 
different to any other app he runs on his PC (and therefore harder to use)



Martin


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