Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
waldo kitty wrote: not that that is our problem or not... Very true, so we leave it at that! :) Regards, - Graeme - -- fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 http://web.fastermac.net/%7EMacPgmr/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... ;-) -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
2009/11/13 Phil Hess macp...@fastermac.net: 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. -- Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
2009/11/14 Henry Vermaak henry.verm...@gmail.com: 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. -- Regards, - Graeme - ___ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
2009/11/14 Graeme Geldenhuys graemeg.li...@gmail.com: 2009/11/14 Henry Vermaak henry.verm...@gmail.com: 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 :) -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 - -- fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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. -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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. Regards, - Graeme - -- fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
2009/11/13 Graeme Geldenhuys gra...@mastermaths.co.za: 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 Esc/something or Esc* before I can think crap, I'm in Lazarus now, not vi. Henry -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 :)? -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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). :) Regards, - Graeme - -- fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 pjh...@purdue.edu 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 -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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. -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
2009/11/13 Phil Hess macp...@fastermac.net: 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 - ___ fpGUI - a cross-platform Free Pascal GUI toolkit http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
2009/11/13 Graeme Geldenhuys graemeg.li...@gmail.com: 2009/11/13 Phil Hess macp...@fastermac.net: 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 -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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. :) -- -Bee- ...making buzzes at http://twitter.com/beezing ...writing stories at http://beeography.wordpress.com -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 - -- fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal http://opensoft.homeip.net/fpgui/ -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
Re: [Lazarus] cross platform [Re: Lazarus Goal]
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 -- ___ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
