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

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