Re: To answer your question about the upcoming Style-Guide..

[Tom Vogt <tom lemuria org>]

Bowie Poag <bjp@primenet.com> wrote:

>    Relax. :) You can rest assured that when I actually do sit down and
> begin penning out what will become V2 of the GNOME UI Style Guide, there

pardon me, but are you really working on the next major version of the style
guide already? we have barely discussed one point yet, and there's a lot
still to come.

for example, the comment that started it all, about the panel and the
single-start-button mistake.
or the more general question about how far customization should go.


>    Standards which make sense, and can survive the test of time, are
> more valuable than you can believe. Ever wonder why the distance between
> the rails of a railroad track are all the same, no matter where you are?
> Its been like that for over 150 years. Why? Because someone back in the
> 1840's sat down, thought about it, and did the right thing.

by the way: railroad tracks in russia have a DIFFERENT width. it was part of
what successfully closed of russia to the german blitzkrieg in wk2.

which goes to say that even if everybody else does it in a certain way, in
some cases it might be better to do it differently.


>    Yes, the form and function of the Style Guide will take largely after
> pre-existing designs. Im strongly against the idea of including specific
> features & functionality into a design for the simple sake that "People
> are just used to it that way"... People are used to Win95, which is as
> close to a living abortion of a desktop as one could imagine; An 
> inconsistant, loosely-collected blob of borrowed ideas.. I'n NOT going to
> lay down the plans to build another Win95. Just because people are used to
> doing something in a paticular way, even when that "way" is terrible, does
> NOT mean that I will advocate its inclusion into V2 of the UI SG. 

very good.


>    This is the core of what separates our approach from that of KDE.
> Function, and visual consistancy must come FIRST--Not the desire to
> placate and comfort the user with a design which simply doesnt make sense.

and this is the reason I put time into gnome, but have deleted kde after
checking it out. :)



-- 
The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken.