Question: Should key bindings be customisable by users? This might affect the answer for how key bindings are to be done. I have a few thoughts but don't want to commit to any unless I know precisely what is wanted/needed.
Michael Whapples On 09/12/10 11:29, John J. Boyer wrote:
I guess I've revealed my ignorance of GUIs. I'm really a command-line guy and find GUIs difficult to understand. But I'm learning. After thinkikng things over I came to about the same conclusions. The top window should have a title bar, the menus and the status bar. The braille and Daisy windows would be child windows. Switching from one document to another would replace these windows. The print and emboss previews would be dialog boxes. The "Welcome screens" would also be dialog boxes. I think the specification might be reworded to make things clearer. The specification is quite detailed about the keystrokes to be used. These may have to be modified to conform to the usage of different platforms. I think this is something that we should provide for now, like internationalization. Putting it in later could be much more work. How might this be done? I think SWT provides for specifying keystrokes for functions. The specification says there will be an item inn the file menu for opening a list of recent documents. I think this would be acceptable in Windows. I like the idea of a "context" menu for different views. Perhaps this should be added to the specification. What happened to the ViewPlus people? Wehaven't heard from them for a loing time. John On Thu, Dec 09, 2010 at 09:59:06AM +0000, Michael Whapples wrote:Hello, I don't think having the Braille and daisy views as top level windows with there own menus would be very natural. Firstly it doesn't really fit with any other GUI application I can think of, normally they either modify available menu options depending on the current view or they grey out unavailable options. So as greyed out options are fairly "normal" to encounter I don't see why they would be confusing. Then there is the case of platforms where menus aren't actually in the window but get placed by applications in a system menu bar like in Mac OSX (NOTE: SWT will automatically handle this for you). As an example of the Mac situation, in safari the web browser, even when I go to its preferences all menu options are still there but ones which are irrelevant to preferences (eg. the option to show/hide the status bar) are greyed out. Also the idea of two top level windows being present in one application at the same time just seems odd to me, I couldn't imagine it would look right (it would probably look like two separate applications). Then what happens when there are more documents opened, your description seems to give me more top level windows and more clutter of the desktop. Then there is the situation of "I am working on a document in BrailleBlaster, I have finished on that document so I close the document but keeping BrailleBlaster open as I want to work on another document", what do I encounter at the point when BrailleBlaster has no open documents? Having the document views as child elements of a "BrailleBlaster appliccation top level window" I would be left with an empty BrailleBlaster window containing only the menus and toolbars (IE. no sub windows), allowing me to go to the menu and choose open document or new or whatever task I want to do. Also with my idea of the view, multiple documents would just lead to more sub views, the desktop only ever has one BrailleBlaster top level window. Now one thing which might be desired is a shortcut pop-up menu specific to each view. What I mean is one of those context menus which are activated by right clicking the mouse of a UI element (use the applications key or may be shift+f10 and on Mac with voiceover vo+shift+m). In these context menus only the options relevant to that element would be shown. Michael Whapples On 09/12/10 04:55, John J. Boyer wrote:This sounds good. My understanding was that the Daisy and Braille windows would each have their own menus. The specification doesn't say so explicitly, but it seemed reasonable, since some things would be possible in one window and some things in another. If the Daisy and Braille windows are embedded in a top window with the menus, status bar and toolbar, the grayed-out options could be confusing and frustrating for the user. Is this actually the way it will be? So the print and embosser previews are basically big dialog boxes. I don't remember anyone saying they should be open continually. They are opened when needed. I don't think BrailleBlsster should display multiple documents simultaneously, since it already has two views for each document. Rather, when a user switched to another document these view would be changed for that document. The Daisy and Braille windows should prbably be called views instead, especially if they don't contain their own menus. John On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 08:45:53PM +0000, Michael Whapples wrote:We seem to be getting a whole jumble of things here. A window is a very generic thing. A dialog is a type of window, normally used to show messages or let users select options. A dialog is not embedded in the top level window but can be such that it prevents the user going back to the main window. A dialog might not cover the main application top level window. Then there are child windows (they may have another name) which usually is embedded into the top level window. These may be used for multiple documents (eg. MS Word has been known to work like this I don't know about their latest version). Finally then there are what I am calling a top level window, these don't have any other window containing them. My feeling is: * BrailleBlaster will have a top level window containing the menus and such like which are common to all situations. * The daisy viewer and Braille viewers will be child windows or may be even panes within a child window or may be this will all work on the tab idea. Anyway the main idea is these will be embedded into the top level window. * Print and preview will be dialog boxes as these are both actions (IE. I go to print/emboss a document or I go and view how it will be printed). I see no reason why print preview would need to be open continually. Michael Whapples On 08/12/10 20:13, John J. Boyer wrote:I've never actually looked at a print preview window. Has anyone seen an embosser preview window? I would think that programs would handle preview by opening a temporary window that either hides the existing window or minimizes them. John On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 12:27:33PM -0600, qubit wrote:Regarding What happens to the windows when a print preview is active: I wonder if opening a new window is a good idea. I am growing to like one feature in eclipse's UI: eclipse will cycle through all the various windows if you hold control and type F7 repeatedly. It has a lot of rather busy windows. I wonder what it looks like to a sighted person. As for print preview, I have no idea what to do if you are embossing a document. The image in the braille window doesn't necessarily look like the output of the device. Do the various embossers provide any kind of API for knowing what the braille will look like? Also, if viewing it on screen, you are further limited by the display capabilities. Interesting question. But do you really want there to be a hard coded window for print preview, print and emboss? Couldn't it just be like most apps that put a command for print and emboss and print preview in the file menu? That could bring up a dialog. Just wondering. --le ----- Original Message ----- From: "John J. Boyer"<john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To:<brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 9:24 AM Subject: [brailleblaster] Thoughts on the Specification I have just reread the specification carefully. It certainly hangs together better for me than at the beginning. Here are some thoughts. There is a menu item for opening a list of recent documents. These documents should be on the menu, just below the exit choice, as they are ikn most word processors. The ability to open recent documents means that the users will want MDI. Fortunately, this is not hard to implement. We may need a third window for each document for print and embosser previews. What happens to the Daisy and Braille windows when a preview is chosen? Are they minimized? John -- John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer Abilitiessoft, Inc. http://www.abilitiessoft.com Madison, Wisconsin USA Developing software for people with disabilities
