From: o...@pell.chi.il.us (david parsons)
Subject: Re: New Project: Kool Desktop Environment. Programmers wanted!
Date: 1996/10/22
Message-ID: <54jk4m$1nh@pell.pell.chi.il.us>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 191362387
references: <53tkvv$b4j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de> <53vjus$n1j@newsserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de> <3269E4E0.4F2BAA14@aibon.ping.de> <54ito3$d8@anna.sub.de>
organization: The International Queer Conspiracy
newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,de.comp.os.linux.misc


In article <54ito3...@anna.sub.de>, Uli Kaage <u...@anna.sub.de> wrote:
>In article <3269E4E0.4F2BA...@aibon.ping.de>,
>Sascha Ziemann  <s...@aibon.ping.de> wrote:
>>Beside that the process of creating a program and using a program must
>>be the same! A GUI-program should be an example of how this program
>>could look like and the user has to be able to change the outfit at all.
>>It must be possible to move the buttons to other places in a dialog-box.
>>It must be possible the create new different dialog-boxes with the
>>dialog-elements from the existing. It must be possible to join
>>dialog-boxes and frames in the way the user likes it. If you want to
>>write something great, write that!

>In my opinion this would turn back the wheel. Why do you need to
>change the appearance of a program?

You don't, but the user might.  That's why you set up preferences
and let the user play around until they're happy with the way their
UI looks.  And if you build this sort of configurability in, you
don't need to worry about supporting a program that's been hacked
into bloody gobbets by someone customising their code.

(What I left unsaid is that preferences need to function across ALL
of the applications that talk to your UI; if the user makes buttons
look like hot dogs, then _every_ button should look like a hot dog,
not just the buttons in the app that they just called up preferences
in.)

                ____
  david parsons \bi/ o...@pell.chi.il.us
                 \/