[screenweaver] on the GUI

[Muzak]

Heya,

Have been thinking about the GUI myself and personally don't see the need for a total revamp.
The GUI works as is and on top of that alot of people (those that have been using the commercial version) are already familliar with 
it.

I do like the idea (and samples) of the xml based GUI though ;-)

Features:
Skinnable --> mmmm, can't see why really.
Multi language support --> for me personally, it's not a must.
Look and feel --> looks perfect to me ;-)

regards,
Muzak

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martijn de Visser" <martijn at martijndevisser.com>
To: <screenweaver at osflash.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2005 1:51 PM
Subject: [screenweaver] on the GUI


> Hi all,
>
> Yesterday, I had a talk with Edwin concerning the SWOS GUI. We both agreed that completely revamping the current interface for the 
> current version (3.x) is not a good idea. It would involve too much work and would also definitely slowdown progress on coming to 
> a stable 3.x release.
>
> So, I think the best course of action is to make sure we have a stable release to "ship" as soon as possible. That build would use 
> the old, AS1 based GUI. It's not pretty under the hood, but I think that for now it suffices and, more importantly, we wont 
> introduce any new bugs or problems for the current version.
>
> That means that most of the work for this release will be focused on the internal workings of SWOS. The engine, EI and LC stuff, 
> QA etc. The GUI can be used as is.
>
> Once we have a stable open source release available, we can start rebuilding the GUI.
>
> The GUI layout would ideally be based on XML to make sure we can easily update it whenever we add new features that need to be 
> accessible through the GUI.
>
> Technically, I'm thinking along these lines:
>
> http://www.martijndevisser.com/download/fform/ (older code)
>
> and:
>
> http://www.martijndevisser.com/flickr/flickr.html (updated version of FForm)
>
> This is a rather simple and straightforward XML based form layout engine I wrote some time ago . Perhaps we won't need any of the 
> fancy elasticity effects it currently uses, we could make that a setting in the SW GUI preferences.
>
> Furthermore, I don't think we should make Screenweaver skinnable per-se. I don't see the need for that as of now and I also think 
> it would make things a lot more complicated than necessary. The engine I wrote comes with a number of simple and very lightwieght 
> components, which can be easily extended and improved upon.
>
> On a last note, we should also consider setting up the GUI for multiple languages.
>
> For now, I'm very curiuos about the Builder API Thomas is developing. The new GUI would, of course, use that API to communicate 
> with the engine and to start and monitor the build process.
>
> Let me know what you guys think of the current and future GUI for SW. Do you think a skinnable version of SW would be a winner? If 
> so, why? Do you think multi language support is important? Should we reuse the current graphic style of SW, or should we try and 
> find a "real" designer (I've done my best with the current version, but I'm not really  graphic designer) to create a new 
> look-and-feel?
>
> Cheers, Martijn.
>
>
>
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