Java > Scala -> new thread: GUI for D

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Adam Wilson" <flyboynw at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:op.v5vpeyg4707hn8 at invictus.skynet.com...
> On Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:15:12 -0800, Nick Sabalausky <a at a.a> wrote:
>
>> "Adam Wilson" <flyboynw at gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:op.v5vibnca707hn8 at invictus.skynet.com...
>>> On Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:33:48 -0800, a <a at a.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> QML looks like it is (currently ?) targeted at the kind of GUI
>>>> programming when you make your own custom widgets for everything. It
>>>> only provides the most basic components such as rectangles, text, and
>>>> images. There isn't, say, a button components - you have to make one
>>>> using a Rectangle and a MouseArea. One consequence of this is that
>>>> typical GUI programming is much slower. Another consequence is that you
>>>> can't build GUIs that look native on multiple platforms. QML is 
>>>> probably
>>>> great for some things, but it is not a replacement for GUI  toolkits
>>>> such as Qt.
>>>
>>> This is similar in concept to how XAML in WPF/Silverlight is used to
>>> construct screens, and it's not bad idea. And the fact that the UX can 
>>> be
>>> skinned to look nothing like the default OSUI is actually probably one 
>>> of
>>> the most useful things about WPF and Silverlight. Yes, it doesn't look
>>> true to the OS, but you'll find that in the UI Design world, that is of
>>> surprisingly little importance.
>>
>> That's without a doubt my #1 complaint about desktop apps over the last
>> decade: Narcissistic designers with nothing but contempt for a user's
>> control over their own system.
>>
>
> So the push for multi-platform UI consistency via the internet and 
> HTML/CSS is wrong?

It's unrelated and irrelevent. HTML/CSS is for documents and presentation 
(though it could stand to be much better at presentation). Cramming apps 
into a web browser is moronic any way you look at it. Even if your goal 
actually is "Fuck your OS and your settings, I'm forcing *MY* design on 
you!" like most asshole designers these days, doing it via a web browser is 
*still* an unnecessary and grossly inferior way to go about it.

> The implementation might  be lacking, but I don't see any point in arguing 
> with the collective will  of billions of people.
>

The collective will of thousands of **designers**. The majority of sheeple 
just gobble up whetever's tossed onto their plate. Feed them "web apps" and 
tell them it's the great new thing, and they believe it. Feed them "mobile 
apps" and tell them it's the great new thing, and they believe it. Feed them 
"desktop apps" and tell them it's the great new thing, and they believe it. 
It doesn't make a damn bit of difference what it is. The billions of people 
HAVE NO COLLECTIVE WILL. The majority of the time, their only will is to 
swallow anything they're given, and right now, with the exception of mobile, 
what they're being fed just happens to be web apps, therefore they assume 
web apps are a great and wonderous thing (They're not. They're a perversion 
of technology).

So a designer following the "collective will of billions of people" is 
nothing but an idiocy feedback loop with nobody at the helm. As designers, 
we have a resposibility to give people *quality*, not whatever randam 
garbage the trend-whore designers have decided to cram down all their loyal 
subject's throats.

>>> The most important thing to a UI designer  is that the UI looks and 
>>> works
>>> the same across *ALL* OS's.
>>
>> That's just terrible.
>>
>
> Why? Isn't that pretty much the definition of the internet?
>

No, of course not.

>
> Mobile has form factor issues, namely that it's too small to display a 
> desktop style UI. But UI design isn't a technical thing, it's a 
> right-brain thing. As long as the interaction and display models are 
> similar (i.e. it works and looks similar) the physical layout changes that 
> the mobile form-factor demands won't seem nearly as jarring to the user, 
> because they already have a mental model for how to interact with the 
> interface for that piece of software.

Right, and that all boils down to: You make it right for the given platform 
instead of trying to force the same look & feel onto everything. Forcing the 
same look & feel on all platforms only works if all platforms are the same. 
And then anytime some platform is different, that thinking just leads people 
to bitch and moan about the device being "wrong" ("The screen's too small 
for my pristine one-size-fits-all design! It's the devices fault! Wah!").

>
> I have no problem defaulting to the OS default look, and in fact that 
> would be the default of any GUI project I'd be interested in undertaking. 
> But I don't want to be limited to just the OS look. Those types of 
> arbitrary limitations fly in the face of the D way, at least as I 
> understand it.
>

I agree the look of apps should be user-configurable, but that belongs at 
the OS/Window-Manager level. 'Course, I'll grant that's never going to 
happen on MS or Apple platforms, in which case, yea, using a lib that makes 
"system" the default and "user-configured" an option is the next best thing.