Re: [vos-d] notes from IRC, pt 2
Posted at: http://interreality.org/phorum/read.php?2,110,115#msg-115 reed wrote: Peter Amstutz Wrote: - The d key goes into drag and drop mode, which overrides the movement keys and is not obvious how to escape from (you hit escape). Minor mode should be indicated in the status bar (so should major mode actually). - Did not think splitting was a common enough operation to support having those buttons on the button bar. The panel header bars and what controls on it will have to be refined over time. There are several little tricks we could use to make them more elegant, but should probably wait to see what the most important operations will be. Splitting could be frequently used, but only in some use situations. I.e. it depends on what kind of thing you're doing in VOS. How about putting those buttons in a toggle control, but sync all the toggle controls. I.e. a little button in each pane title bar causes a set of splitter buttons to appear or disappear in all title bars. Or hide that set of buttons except when you mouse over that area. Or make it a menu option. A key binding could also be used to show/hide those buttons (like hold down shift). I think we could also make the panel headers have two states, big and small. In big state it could have all the stuff it currently has, but on two lines and be less crowded. In small state. Some additional panel controls I think might be useful: * Buttons to do a combination of split and set major mode * Minimize/Restore the pane to a very small unobtrusive button * Minimize/Restore all other panes except this one. * Collapse/Restore the pane to just its header (like MS Word's panels IIRC) - Mentioned running out of space in the window when using the mouse to move. I have this same problem. Should keep walking or turning when the mouse is at the edge of the screen. Or act like S4 and use click to walk, mouse to turn only. - Did not like Emacs-style multi-key chords. I pointed out that the majority of Ctrl- and Alt- prefix key shortcuts are already monopolized by the OS, other GUI controls or by convention, so there are very few shortcut keys available without getting into multi-key chords. I think we should reserve multi-key chords for more advanced actions. I don't see why we can't use any CTRL key we want, including CTRL-SHIFT keys, and also the F-keys. Let the OS have ALT. - Agreed the the UI will probably become clearer once its purpose is clearer. Lacking the ability to do any interesting browsing or editing Any ideas on how we can set up something in the prototype that shows this? Maybe set up a special view of interesting objects that you can play with, like change colors of the trees or something? Reed ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] notes from IRC
On Fri, Oct 19, 2007 at 05:16:27PM -0400, Peter Amstutz wrote: Notes from some initial discussion of the interreality 3d interface. Participants: winterk, zaharazod, tetron - Should be more like stuff people expect - Splitting and merging panels is likely to confuse casual users - Casual users should not have to mess around with the interface (splitting, creating new panels, changing modes, etc) - Suggested having a basic layout and an advanced layout to help casual users - Discussed implementing different layouts as UI skins which set up a particular panel/mode configuration for a particular task (browsing, editing, programming, etc). Skins could hide customization buttons like splitting. I agree, this is something I suggested to Pete earlier. Do people want this feature added to the prototype, or wait for the real app? Other things that can go into saved GUI configurations are shortcut commands for the particular application. Esp shortcuts to creating objects of a certain type. So if you are in 3D mode and are going to create a new object, the menu gives you all the a3dl types (at the top of the list.) It should also remember your last UI configuration and could also ship with a default configuration in a file. Having the UI configurations in files lets people set up configs for different purposes or users and share and redistribute them. - Suggested initial 3D panel after login should include chat panel (good idea). This could be part of the default UI configuration. (I actually am not a fan of having login be a full panel, it should be a temporary panel or dialog box shown by other view modes as needed.) - Discussed that the goal is for UI controls to be per-world configurable This is something that will make it really useful and work well, but is pretty novel AFAIK. I don't really know of any other application that does this, except that Javascript has a key handler so web pages can get keystrokes (except control keys). VRML does it similarly I guess. But those are all used by the content, neither of those is customizing the shape of the meta-UI. So we need to think through how it works. E.g. should it automatically reconfigure, then show a message at the top notifying you that it did? Or should it ask first? Should it only allow configuration within the one pane that is viewing the Vobject that wants to reconfigure? Should it open a new window frame with the new configuration, leaving your old configuration alone? Reed ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] notes from IRC
On Fri, Oct 19, 2007 at 05:40:40PM -0400, Reed Hedges wrote: I agree, this is something I suggested to Pete earlier. Do people want this feature added to the prototype, or wait for the real app? Well, the intention is for the prototype code to morph into the real application frontend, so work on it won't go to waste. It's called a prototype largely because the all-important network backend is a mockup, so it looks pretty but doesn't do the most important things the real app will do. So if this is something you'd like to work on, I encourage it. However, if the goal is to get something useful in peoples hands sooner, I think I should focus on identifying a minimal set of backend VOS functionality for version 0.2, implementing that, and porting the UI prototype to use the real backend. This is something that will make it really useful and work well, but is pretty novel AFAIK. I don't really know of any other application that does this, except that Javascript has a key handler so web pages can get keystrokes (except control keys). VRML does it similarly I guess. But those are all used by the content, neither of those is customizing the shape of the meta-UI. By comparison with the web, arguably the splitters are kind of like the much-hated web frames. It's worth considering why people hate frames so much, and make sure we avoid those mistakes. Also, I really want to support a floating heads up display (HUD) overlayed on the 3D view. My idea is to have some kind of vector graphics representation (based on SVG, probably) that can be used to describe floating HUD elements/UI controls. This actually would be quite useful independent of a HUD. It would be able to render to texture so you can interact with GUI elements in-world, and could be used for rendering generic embedded cross-platform 2D UIs (what people are trying to do with web apps these days). If we develop a really good 2D UI kit, we could throw out wxWidgets and just use our own vector-based UI :-) But I'm getting ahead of myself. So we need to think through how it works. E.g. should it automatically reconfigure, then show a message at the top notifying you that it did? Or should it ask first? Should it only allow configuration within the one pane that is viewing the Vobject that wants to reconfigure? Should it open a new window frame with the new configuration, leaving your old configuration alone? Hmm, well a multi-panel configuration is a bit different from a minor mode, which only affects a single panel of a specific mode. I'm not sure how to group it, although at the level of the entire frame would make the most sense. When you join a world, it could pop up a dialog saying, this would would like to set a custom UI, is that ok? As you mentioned, we'll have standard UI configurations that people can use as defaults or to build from to create their UIs. -- [ Peter Amstutz ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] [Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet] [ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ] [ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey: pgpkeys.mit.edu 18C21DF7 ] signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] notes from IRC
Just thought of this: One thing that a remote app. might want to customize about the UI is how some things are labeled, or it might want to add special informational labels/text blocks/tooltips/bubbles/whatever. Reed ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
