Re: [gtk-list] Style Guide (was Re: vi bindings for text widgets)

["Jason A. Pfeil" <pfeil nu cs fsu edu>]

I agree with this as far as global-based .rc files.  However, users should
be allowed maximal flexibility to customize their apps for their own use.
One of the amazing benefits of UNIX/Linux is that it handles multiple
users in a FAR better way than Microshaft Portholes can, especially in
recognizing that individual users should be able to store individual
preferences that are different from the global preferences.  .bashrc and
.profile are a case in point.

On Tue, 7 Jul 1998, Steve Hosgood wrote:

> > Ulric wrote:
> > > > On Fri, 3 Jul 1998, matt wrote:
> > > > > what is the possiblity of someone hacking in
> > > > > vi bindings into the text and text entry widgets?
> > 
> > Is there any reason at all why this should not be handled through
> > resources? Surely the keybindings are not intended to be permanently
> > hard-coded in gtktext.c?
> > 
> 
> I know this is heretical, but I'll say it anyway.
> 
> I say keybindings should be a function of a 'style guide', and not settable
> to random things by users. Here we are, championing GTK as a fine toolkit for
> writing applications, yet we seem to be supporting two conflicting camps
> at the same time:
> 
> One says: "here is a set of nice widgets, so that all GTK applications can
> have a similar look and feel".
> 
> The other says: "you can set your own preferences for everything in your
> .rc files in such a way that GTK applications on *your* workstation are so
> baroque that no one except you can run them"!
> 
> 
> Now, I'm not a fan of Micro$oft and their products, but I think I have to
> admit that they had a sensible idea early on (probably in Windows 2 or
> earlier) in that they wrote a style guide. Not every MS developer implements
> everthing according to the book of course, but *most* MS Windows applications
> have a fairly similar mentality running through their GUI. Occasionally, you
> come across weirdo applications which break all the rules (like the RS
> Components CD Catalogue, available in the UK) and they stand out in their
> awfulness.
> 
> The same cannot be said of the X window world. Most things plumb new depths
> of GUI design awfulness! I'd like to think that GTK is a step away from that
> world, and toward a new era of quality applications.
> 
> To take a single example, at least all GTK scrollbars work similarly, and
> tend to live to the right or below the thing they scroll, but some X
> applications place them elsewhere, and/or use the idea of clicking left button
> in the trough to scroll down, right button in the trough to scroll up!
> 
> 
> Now, it is surely fair to claim that GTK should *not* allow random users to
> redefine its scrollbar widget to work in the 'left button'/'right button' way?
> Otherwise we'd all get pretty annoyed if we ever had to use each others'
> workstations for a moment occasionally.
> 
> I extend this claim to cover the 'vi keybindings' argument. I think GTK
> should have its own keybindings. For convenience they should be chosen to be
> maximally convenient to the most users at the time they are laid down. From
> then on, they go in the 'style guide' as *the* GTK way to do something.
> 
> 
> P.S.
> I have no argument with .rc files setting (say) the font used by menus, or the
> background colours of buttons or windows. But changing *input* methodology in
> .rc files is, I argue, not a Good Thing.
> 
> 
> P.P.S
> Should the GTK project even start to think about putting an informal GTK
> style-guide together before GTK applications get so unlike each other in
> mentality that they stop being usable?
> 
> --
> 
> Steve                                       | Steve's law of House Rewiring:
> S.Hosgood@swansea.ac.uk                     | "No matter how many power sockets
> Phone: +44 1792 297292 + ask for Steve      |  you fit in a room, you will run
> Fax:   +44 1792 295811                      |  out within the first week of use
> --------------------------------------------+  even if you took Steve's law of
> http://iiit.swan.ac.uk/~iisteve/steve.html  |  House Rewiring into account"
> 
> 
> -- 
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> 
> 

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Jason A. Pfeil, Computer Science Graduate Student      101 Carothers Hall
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