Asp Forum - A menubar for Shoes?

Andy Joel

9/11/2008 12:58:00 PM

I have just recently tarted to look at Shoes, after a quick dabble with
Tk and Fox, and I really like its elegant style. However, there seems to
be no menu widgets, either built-in or indeed anywhere on the web that I
can find. This is a curious ommission.

Has anyone done this already? Can anyone point me in the right
direction?
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

8 Answers

Phlip

9/11/2008 1:56:00 PM

Andy Joel wrote:

> I have just recently tarted to look at Shoes, after a quick dabble with
> Tk and Fox, and I really like its elegant style. However, there seems to
> be no menu widgets, either built-in or indeed anywhere on the web that I
> can find. This is a curious ommission.
>
> Has anyone done this already? Can anyone point me in the right
> direction?

Shoes is a challenge to you: Don't think inside the box. Don't ask how to put a
menu between your users and your engine. Think instead about what kind of new,
beautiful GUI would display and animate your features the best.

(Just don't try to test-first it;)

--
Phlip

Andy Joel

9/12/2008 10:55:00 AM

Phlip wrote:
> Andy Joel wrote:
>
>> I have just recently tarted to look at Shoes, after a quick dabble with
>> Tk and Fox, and I really like its elegant style. However, there seems to
>> be no menu widgets, either built-in or indeed anywhere on the web that I
>> can find. This is a curious ommission.
>>
> Shoes is a challenge to you: Don't think inside the box. Don't ask how
> to put a
> menu between your users and your engine. Think instead about what kind
> of new,
> beautiful GUI would display and animate your features the best.

I prefer to be able to choose when I want to think outside the box.

Menus are a ubiquious part of GUIs; users know how to use them and what
to expect. If they want to save, they already know how to do that in
countless GUI applications across Windows and Mac (and I guess Linux
too). But not for a Ruby Shoes application. There is a good reason why
enus have been a part of GUIs for well over twenty years - they work
very well. I think this is a serious ommission from the toolkit, and it
surprises me that no one else on the web sees it that way.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Michal Suchanek

9/12/2008 11:26:00 AM

On 12/09/2008, Andy Joel <ak_joel@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Phlip wrote:
> > Andy Joel wrote:
> >
> >> I have just recently tarted to look at Shoes, after a quick dabble with
> >> Tk and Fox, and I really like its elegant style. However, there seems to
> >> be no menu widgets, either built-in or indeed anywhere on the web that I
> >> can find. This is a curious ommission.
> >>
>
> > Shoes is a challenge to you: Don't think inside the box. Don't ask how
> > to put a
> > menu between your users and your engine. Think instead about what kind
> > of new,
> > beautiful GUI would display and animate your features the best.
>
>
> I prefer to be able to choose when I want to think outside the box.

Well, you chose that when you chose Shoes.

>
> Menus are a ubiquious part of GUIs; users know how to use them and what
> to expect. If they want to save, they already know how to do that in
> countless GUI applications across Windows and Mac (and I guess Linux
> too). But not for a Ruby Shoes application. There is a good reason why
> enus have been a part of GUIs for well over twenty years - they work
> very well. I think this is a serious ommission from the toolkit, and it
> surprises me that no one else on the web sees it that way.
>

And they are consistent hindrance in the user interaction for over
twenty years. They are one of the poorest UI parts in use today.

There are other ways how to present a "Save" feature to the user.
There are bazillions of applications out there that have a "Save"
button on every graphics enabled platform I have seen.

And there are many applications that do not require you to save
anything manually. They update your choices on the fly as you make
them. And if the application is intended for editing complex data it
should have undo history anyway, and you can automatically save that.

If you really feel like you absolutely need a menu there is about a
dozen toolkits you can choose from, just choose the tool that fits
your needs.

Thanks

Michal

Phlip

9/12/2008 12:19:00 PM

Various combatants wrote:

> Menus are a ubiquious part of GUIs; users know how to use them and what
> to expect.

Menus are a Help system that lets you actually do the helped thing. They should
also display the keystroke shortcut for an action. But...

> There are other ways how to present a "Save" feature to the user.
> There are bazillions of applications out there that have a "Save"
> button on every graphics enabled platform I have seen.

That's because the Save concept is itself broken. A user saves to create a
"checkpoint" they can revert to. If the program actually presented the Revert
itself, as a kind of Undo, then every action should mirror on the hard drive,
and the program would be less naive-user hostile.

--
Phlip

Michal Suchanek

9/12/2008 7:06:00 PM

On 12/09/2008, Phlip <phlip2005@gmail.com> wrote:
> Various combatants wrote:
>
>
> > Menus are a ubiquious part of GUIs; users know how to use them and what
> > to expect.
> >
>
> Menus are a Help system that lets you actually do the helped thing. They
> should also display the keystroke shortcut for an action. But...
>

That one was hard to parse..

Yes, in some applications like the AutoCAD the menu is just an addon
that lists some possible functions or makes them conveniently
available (like the middle button menu). The commands performed using
the menu are logged in the command window and can then be retyped by
the user which tends to be much faster even for people who are not
touch typists.

Unfortunately, most applications that do use menus use them as the
primary place for activating the listed functions. Some are replicated
as keyboard shortcuts or other UI elements but many are not, and the
keyboard shortcuts are rarely configurable.

One notable exception used to be the GIMP - earlier versions of the
program allowed the user to point at a menu item and define a keyboard
shortcut by simply pressing the key combination. Currently you have to
change an option hidden in a very complex dialog to activate this
function.

Thanks

Michal

_why

9/13/2008 5:27:00 AM

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 07:54:33PM +0900, Andy Joel wrote:
> But not for a Ruby Shoes application. There is a good reason why
> menus have been a part of GUIs for well over twenty years - they work
> very well. I think this is a serious ommission from the toolkit, and it
> surprises me that no one else on the web sees it that way.

I think Shoes will have menus before the end of the year. All
arguments aside, my compelling reason for adding menus would be
because OS X insists on giving every app a menu. And it hurts the
app if you can't customize that menu.

Yeah, I know it probably seems horrific that this isn't done already.
Shoes just isn't a "GUI" toolkit. Not like wxWidgets or FOX or QT or
any of those. I want to make it fun and light and easy to use.
Whatever that means. And I just haven't figured out how to fit
menus into that yet.

_why

Eleanor McHugh

9/13/2008 11:46:00 PM

On 13 Sep 2008, at 06:26, _why wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 07:54:33PM +0900, Andy Joel wrote:
>> But not for a Ruby Shoes application. There is a good reason why
>> menus have been a part of GUIs for well over twenty years - they work
>> very well. I think this is a serious ommission from the toolkit,
>> and it
>> surprises me that no one else on the web sees it that way.
>
> I think Shoes will have menus before the end of the year. All
> arguments aside, my compelling reason for adding menus would be
> because OS X insists on giving every app a menu. And it hurts the
> app if you can't customize that menu.

Funnily enough that's the main reason the lack of menus bugs me, but
given the pace at which Shoes is developing I've always thought it
churlish to pass comment ;)

> Yeah, I know it probably seems horrific that this isn't done already.
> Shoes just isn't a "GUI" toolkit. Not like wxWidgets or FOX or QT or
> any of those. I want to make it fun and light and easy to use.
> Whatever that means. And I just haven't figured out how to fit
> menus into that yet.

One obvious side effect of introducing menus is that you'll face
pressure to support keyboard accelerators as well, which could
interfere with the current method for handling key presses.

Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-...
----
raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

Clinton D. Judy

9/15/2008 12:24:00 PM

Can I encourage you to keep a consistent vision for Shoes? I think it's
easy to make GUI toolkits more complicated than they need to be. I'm
looking forward to the "easiness" of Shoes. :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: _why [mailto:why@ruby-lang.org]=20
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2008 1:27 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: A menubar for Shoes?

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 07:54:33PM +0900, Andy Joel wrote:
> But not for a Ruby Shoes application. There is a good reason why=20
> menus have been a part of GUIs for well over twenty years - they work=20
> very well. I think this is a serious ommission from the toolkit, and
it=20
> surprises me that no one else on the web sees it that way.

I think Shoes will have menus before the end of the year. All
arguments aside, my compelling reason for adding menus would be
because OS X insists on giving every app a menu. And it hurts the
app if you can't customize that menu.

Yeah, I know it probably seems horrific that this isn't done already.
Shoes just isn't a "GUI" toolkit. Not like wxWidgets or FOX or QT or
any of those. I want to make it fun and light and easy to use.
Whatever that means. And I just haven't figured out how to fit
menus into that yet.

_why

comp.lang.ruby

A menubar for Shoes?

Andy Joel

Phlip

Andy Joel

Michal Suchanek

Phlip

Michal Suchanek

_why

Eleanor McHugh

Clinton D. Judy

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