Why is Konfabulator "Pretty?"

[Thomas McGrath III]

Marielle,

Bill spurred me on with his wish that REV had a more hip UI. I  
thought that a template with some buttonGadget style simplicity and  
some guidelines for coding in Rev would pave the way for a series of  
simple apps (widgets, dashboards, etc.) I have two projects in the  
works right now but have not spec'd them out fully yet. They would  
however fit into a scheme like this.

Sometimes like with ArcadeEngine there are so many ideas floating  
around but none of them come to the surface. Where as when you start  
with a template or sample/example then the overwhelming aspect of a  
total design is taken out of the picture. All you have to focus on is  
the sparking of the imagination. Once it is sparked, and for me this  
happens when looking at other examples although they do not have to  
be related at all, I then start going to town with code snippets and  
add-ons and new ideas, etc. until the next thing you know a complete  
idea has formed and is being spec'd out and detailed and then  
finalized. This doesn't always happen this way but it is fun when it  
does and a lot of my best stuff started from poking around at an  
example of something else and a new idea was born.

Other times I have an idea and spec it out at the onset and proceed  
in an orderly fashion until finished. Not as much fun, IMO but  
productive none the same.

I would envision a Kit that was the Playground or Sandbox to start  
with and there would be templates and such and then as you play  
around you might just spark that idea.

HHMMM That's as far as I've gotten.

Tom


On Dec 8, 2005, at 6:19 PM, Marielle Lange wrote:

> Thomas wrote:
>> What I think is needed is a set of guidelines or templates like  
>> you said. Sort of the way the Revolution Online scripting  
>> conference stacks are similarly following a format BUT for the  
>> widgets it is the actual look and feel that changes and the  
>> template is for the floating and coding and expected behavior of  
>> the widgets when deployed.
>
> Thomas, I am very much interested in this approach, but in a more  
> "useful" area. See: <http://projects.lexicall.org/exercist/>. I  
> will have to think on how to treat common parts of some  
> applications as widgets that can easily be moved from one  
> application to another, with a skin that can be easily replaced by  
> another. I would love to see what you have come up with for your  
> "application profiler" that you recently  presented as a case study  
> on this list. If there are parts that you can make public, please  
> consider putting me among the recipients of the email.
>
> Marielle