From: jprad@faatcrl.UUCP (Jack Radigan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Icon default tool paths (was Re: A4000 Specs? Who knows.)
Date: 11 Sep 92 20:07:30 GMT
Organization: FAA Technical Center, Atlantic City NJ

dnavas@oracle.uucp (David Navas) writes:

>In this system, windows are objects too, so it's not far-fetched to make a
>"sub-window" that belongs to the main window and put the overflow gadgets
>there.  You'd want some sort of toolbox-type of layout that would
>automatically start a new column/row, of course....  That last one I can see
>difficulties with -- ick!

  True, but you're essentially limiting yourself to a cartesian system, it
leaves no room for logically laid out GUI's as Greg had refered to.  It would
also require some method where the object manager would "know" when and where
to break the window in two and put the remaining objects in the overflow
window.

  In theory it sounds great, but it all sounds like way too much effort for
the end result.

>The way I specify window size >preference< is as a percentage of screen
>size.  I assume font preferences often follow that sort of formula too :)
>Not sure what else you're implying there, though.

  The implication is that the 200 line NTSC is the lowest common denominator
now.  In order to guarantee that your window will work it has to be small
enough to fit on one of these screens.  Further, in order to make it flexible
you have to make your windows smaller still so that when the new window is
scaled up for a larger font it can still open up on the screen.

>This is simple -- one makes the appropriate TextLength() [or whatever, I
>forget] call, and away you go.  Of course, you may have to specify a
>text gadget as being so many -average-width- characters wide, but that's
>different....

  That's not what I was driving at.  Greg has been discussing a visually
pleasing and coherent GUI.  When you change the font, especially to a
proportional one you can throw off the pleasant look and might even end up
with something that is jarring to look at.

>Well, I don't think the user should expect that a terminal would successfully
>open, say, a 24line 48point Helvetica font on his x200line screen.  Seems
>that a failure to open the window wouldn't cause too much heartburn....

  Unfortunately, some will...  Critics are lurking at every corner to lambaste
you for not accounting for every possibility.

>>  If we were told that system would only allow fonts that fit into a narrow
>>band of width and height you'd still have some measure of user flexibility
>>in choosing the font of their choice while giving us a target that moves
>>along predictable vectors to shoot at.

>I don't want to be stuck with a 9 point font on a 2000square pixel screen.

  My definition of narrow does not imply an 8 or 9 point font.  But, I think
that if the GUI was limited to 8-10 points scaled by the vertical resolution
of the screen it could be a workable system for both the developer and the
user.

>A real geometry manager will solve many of these problems.

  Might, but it would be simpler and accomplish much the same by just having
the system preserve layout ratios across different resolutions.

  -jack-