On 03/10/2009, at 4:19 PM, Mike Schrag wrote:
> I see two goals for WOLips -- one is to continue to build out
> features to support WebObjects development, the other is to work
> towards providing a development experience that people expect out of
> a Mac app ... This change clearly doesn't add new features, and
> isn't intended to support any future features. This is purely an
> aesthetic change.
Fair enough.
> The eclipse approach as a single window interface is very unmaclike.
(it loves the mac beach ball though; gotta pay tribute there :)
> That we open Entity Modeler in a new window by default is much more
> macish and really not eclipseish -- you can tell by how much work we
> have to do to make that behave mostly as you expect. If you look at
> really any Apple app, what we show as a Properties view would be an
> Inspector window. Open Interface Builder and it would behave the
> same way -- always-on-top of Entity Modeler, and it wouldn't be any
> change to the way you manage focus at all. The main difference is
> that you CAN close it, and reduce clutter. Eclipse LOVES clutter --
> it's like their mission statement to provide as much crap in one UI
> as they possibly can -- actions, menus, buttons, views, coolbars,
> toolbars, view menus. It's ridiculous.
Yep.
> If you use Xcode for development, you'll find that you don't run it
> full screen -- you have a lot more individual windows vs Eclipse's
> one huge window. It would also be a better use of space because
> currently we use Eclipse's tabbed preferences panel, which those
> tabs on the left side, which is a big waste of space and look ugly
> as hell.
yep. All good points.
Eclipse's UI and behaviour will always be one of love/hate with people
- 'cause it aims to do everything cross-platform etc. It's also
bloated with so many plugins, some of which work well, some badly that
it'll never feel like it's out of beta nor natural (as you say). I
don't see this changing in big ways unless there's a radical change
tool-wise, though to do so may sacrifice cross-platform options which
are always the lowest common denominator. e.g., consider a webkit or
IB plugin or something for editing non-java stuff.
I wonder what the workflow would be like if things returned somewhat
towards the way things used to be (with dedicated apps for view/model
editing)... but in a new way... perhaps as a webkit or IB plugin or
something. Then you could drop eclipse's bloat where it's not needed
and perhaps tailor the experience more easily etc and perhaps move
towards the whole experience being more visually driven which could
potentially have some RAD benefits (ala rails). With a language like
groovy backing things the whole experience could be very dynamic.
Just thought I'd throw that out there seeing as you're thinking
outside the box.. And hey, you've gotta have a reason for putting
Gianduia to good use somewhere right? It'll surely need a good UI ;-)
> Anyway ... I'm not sold on this, but Eclipse UI is the suck, so I'm
> always looking a ways we can make it suck less.
Cool.
with regards,
--Lachlan Deck
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