Wired HC Article - UI

[Troy Rollins]

On Monday, August 19, 2002, at 03:16  AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

> The question was:  what can Rev learn from the design of iShell?
>
> Some here have expressed that Rev is too deep too fast and that makes it
> hard to learn to swim gracefully in it.  I believe all software can be
> radically improved, so maybe we can discover specific solutions.
>
> One approach would be to think about what makes iShell valuable to you, 
> then
> think of what you want to do in Rev and how that work might benefit 
> from you
> learn from iShell.

Richard, as usual you make excellent points. But I believe this time you 
have stated the intention better.

But I'll also come back to the fact the overall metaphor for iShell is 
not very well suited to Rev's work flow style - so maybe we examine what 
is a better direction of optimization.

In fact, from my perspective, I'm reasonably happy with Rev's UI. Room 
for improvement? Absolutely. Actually, Wolfgang has previously pointed 
out several such areas - back when he coined "AppLov". If it were me, I 
would focus in on the AppLov like a hawk. It is the key to examination 
of a project in a holistic manner.

Another advantageous tool would be a true project overview - you know, 
like a site map. Something which has the capacity to show graphically a 
projects layout and interconnections. Stacks break out into cards, cards 
have colored icons or stripes on them representing groups, and lines 
show interconnections. Double clicking a card opens it for editing, new 
cards could be added, new links drawn, and so on...

Personally, I don't need that sort of tool, but I can see where it could 
be helpful to folks who are not scripters at heart.

Cheers.
--
Troy
RPSystems, LTD
www.rpsystems.net