great job on the Rev 2 GUI [was Re: where the @&$&* is the audio clips listing?]

[Mathewson]

Alex Rice wrote:

Having not attained thick-wazzuk level; I'm still working
on my 3rd 
degree orange wazzuk belt. :-) All I can say is this is my
opinion.
--
The first time I opened Rev 1.1.1, I remember staring at
the app 
browser, and the toolbar, and thinking to myself. "what the
@#$%^* are 
all those little toolbar buttons for?" For literally 10
minutes I must 
have stared at the Rev UI like a deer caught staring in car
headlights. 
Turns out that they were all useful but I applaud the IDE
GUI changes 
in Rev 2. A user should not feel like they are staring into
the cockpit 
of an F-117 stealth jet when they open the IDE for the
first time! And 
I've stumbled my way though plenty of IDEs. Just imagine
what a 
beginner would think when presented with the Rev 1.1.1 IDE?

Were there gratuitous changes? It would imply:

1) There was not merit and consideration for all of the UI
changes the 
Rev team has made. I wouldn't presume that.

2) There is no equivalent, alternate way for you to use a
function of 
the IDE. Can you honestly say App browser changes are
"gratuitous" when 
the Application Browser preferences allow you to assign
mouse-key 
combinations to all objects in the browser (5 * 3 * 9 = 135
possible 
permutations of mouse-key bindings). No... it's way more
than that. 
It's been a while since I took a combinatorics class.

Alex Rice, Software Developer
-----------------------
A few points worth considering:-

1.  I faced the RR 1.1.1 GUI having not been near Hypercard
for 5 years and only ToolBook in between (a fairly
graceless GUI).  Fiddling around took me a week to have
made enough of a start to win a contract - no, I'm not
brilliant; just found the GUI extremely accessible.

2.  Facing the RR 2 GUI I find that all sorts of things
that I have come to rely on in RR 1.1.1 are now tucked away
'under the hood'.  This may be a more elegant GUI; however
it takes quite a while poking around finding all the bits
under the hood; time, that, arguably, could be better spend
in R&D.

3.  I do not presume anything about the RR team: in fact
their speed of development is amazing and impressive.

4.  I do, however, find certain aspects of the RR 1.1.1 GUI
more to my taste than some in the RR 2 GUI (the properties
palette is a big favourite of mine).  This is a pity as RR
2 has so many more capabilities than RR 1.1.1.

5.  I do not go in for full-frontal flashing; although Alex
abviously feels that is what I have done.  I generally
prefer to keep things under the hood.  However, I do think
that uncritical adulation of anything can lead to
stagnation.

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Wow, glad to get that off my chest.  Richmond Mathewson
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