Hi Mike,
My humble 2 cents: I like the "more Mac-like" objective. Tear it all
(WOLips) away into a "Platform based application" based on Eclipse if
you like (as long as doing so would still allow us to add some of our
favorite utility plugins still) and name it "WebObjects IDE" ... and
build in the "Maclipse" look and feel functionality permanently. I
wish Maclipse plugin was builtin as part of the Mac Goodies and 100%
part of WOLips. Maclipse increases my "Mac-like" happiness 100-fold ;-)
At the end of the day, you are the WOLips development leader, so take
the inputs from everyone, make your decision, and run with it.
Regards, Kieran
On Oct 3, 2009, at 2:19 AM, 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. The eclipse approach as a single window interface
> is very unmaclike. 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. 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.
>
> 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.
>
> ms
>
> On Oct 2, 2009, at 7:56 PM, Lachlan Deck wrote:
>
>> On 03/10/2009, at 6:09 AM, Mike Schrag wrote:
>>
>>> It would work like inspectors on normal Mac apps -- it would just
>>> be "Inspector Window" ... you wouldn't close and reopen for each
>>> one, it would change with selection (like old EOModeler).
>>>
>>> Technically you can tear off the current view, but the layout is
>>> undesirable for an inspector panel. This kind of goes back to the
>>> main question of whether we're an Eclipse app or a Mac app. If
>>> we're a Mac app, I think there's no question that this should be a
>>> separator inspector window -- You really don't see embedded
>>> inspector views very often on the Mac.
>>>
>>> I'm undecided on it at the moment. Just something I'm tossing
>>> around.
>>
>> Can you talk a little more about what advantages you see with the
>> approach? i.e., why bother--when it currently works--unless there's
>> some new feature that you've got awaiting screen space?
>>
>> The problem with the inspector (as in the screen shot) is that it
>> has to float somewhere on the screen, it has to remain on top of
>> things as otherwise you keep having to bring it to the fore to use
>> it etc
>>
>> The eclipse window is typically full-screen also .. so where would
>> it float without being in the way?
>>
>> I think I'd have to use it to make a call. But like David I wonder
>> how this would work (focus-wise) with stepping through and
>> adjusting multiple attributes/relations.
>>
>> with regards,
>> --
>>
>> Lachlan Deck
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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