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

[Ulric Eriksson <ulric edu stockholm se>]

On Tue, 7 Jul 1998, Steve Hosgood wrote:

> > Ulric wrote:
> > 
> > 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 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"!

Both of those are fine goals. Fortunately, they don't have to conflict.

First of all, locking down keybindings (and fonts and colours and what
have you) by hardcoding them in C does not guarantee a consistent
interface, unless they are hardcoded the same way in every widget. This is
not a solution.

Second, this is Unix. ;-) There are, and will be, different opinions on
what the common look and feel should be. Let's say a brave new team of
hackers decide to design VDE, the Visual Desktop Environment, where all
keybindings are modeled after vi. They should be able to use Gtk without
resorting to wild slashing in the widget code.

> 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.

A style guide is a good idea, and a common set of *default* keybindings
(and colours and fonts...) would help make the interface consistent. This
is perhaps a job for Gnome rather than Gtk. It might actually be good to
use the MS style guide as inspiration (the Gnome style guide looks like it
could use some).

Ulric