World: r3wp

I find a frequent need in other applications to close down popup 
windows with the escape key.  So, perhaps an option like this for 
RebGui windows?

I have not looked into RebGUI styles in detail yet, but what are 
the options to "skin" them? Or to do them (styles) in different colors 
etc.?

none that i am aware of.

no global settings for hover color etc., right?

hover ?

hover (css language) = hilite/mouse-over ...

CTX-REBGUI/COLORS is an object of value:
	window          tuple!    236.233.216
	widget          tuple!    244.243.238
	edge            tuple!    127.157.185
	edit            tuple!    255.255.255
	over            tuple!    255.205.40
	menu            tuple!    49.106.197
	btn-up          tuple!    200.214.251
	btn-down        tuple!    216.232.255
	btn-text        tuple!    77.97.133

CTX-REBGUI/EDIT is an object of value:
	...
	tabbed          block!    length: 5
	hilight-on-focus block!   length: 2
	caret-on-focus  block!    length: 4
	action-on-enter block!    length: 3
	...

ctx-rebgui/widgets/set-sizes unit-size font-size


Plus many widgets have various option flags to control some aspect 
of their behavior.


Probably not skinning in the true sense but enough to change basic 
scale, colors and behaviors to cover the major use cases as they 
have been presented to me thus far. Skinning that lets you change 
"look & feel" to the extent that the GUI can mimic native Windows, 
OSX, C64, etc could be done but at what price in complexity and delivery 
time? And what percentage of folks would just stick with the default 
look & feel anyway. Another way of saying this is to ask whether 
it is a good idea to put 80% of your effort into satisfying the needs 
of 5% of your user-base?

function before looks please!

yes, I know, not trying to push you the unnecessary way .....

That was just theoretical question. I always depreciated old button 
flat look etc., but then I waw Bobiks new Tennis app and I have to 
say that if you come with good coloring, gradients, then it has its 
beauty ...

In fact I find it nicer than traditional OS look. and RebGUI tries 
to mimick OS a bit.

Well, my opinion is, that our community misses some cool gfx man 
:-) Wrong, we have Chris, but he is busy imo to provide us with mock-ups 
:-)

Right at the beginning of RebGUI I asked if anyone had good pointers 
to a consistent graphical style that we could follow (other than 
WindowsXP, Mac OSX, KDE, etc) ... in the ensuing silence I chose 
to go what I'm familiar with, XP. I'm still keen to have a modern 
looking REBOL style that doesn't look too out of place on Windows, 
Mac or Linux; but I'm not a gfx guy. Jaime's BEER interface (the 
GUI config front-end) is about the best I've seen far.

I've had good feedback on the GUI for my RebGUI application.

I think the interface mockup is outstanding. Was wondering what did 
you use to code it? I havent seen many applications that do not use 
the system scheme and still manage to look that sleek.

Congratulations 
and keep it up.

So, that's a direct compliment for RebGUI.

Overlooked that gui-interface for beer. Where is it?

Making the GUI look right and not just a copy of something else is 
tricky. I often think about it. I also had to deside with Canvas, 
both for the tool panel and the requesters. I went with a very basic, 
clean style for the requesters, maybe even a bit boring.

I see two needs. One is for 'normal' application like business application, 
where the GUI shouldn't for any sake come in the way. A basic, clean 
look is needed for that. The other is 'special' application, that 
would benefit from something more eye-candy like. Examples are a 
visual remote control, or a music player.

Geomol is talking about the presentation by Jaime at the devcon I 
think.

Ah, thought sdk had an update.

Graham, I was talking in general, but Jaime may have said something 
similar, I don't remember.

I'm wondering, if users on the different platforms, that REBOL runs 
on, would find it very strange to use an application, that doesn't 
use the normal GUI look for that platform. I remember some guy (a 
developer, I think) many years ago, that would trash an application 
immediately, if it didn't use the OS own GUI.

With REBOL, we have options. We can make our GUI look exactly like 
the host OS (maybe even read the system files to see, what theme 
is selected), or we can build our own, maybe better GUI.

I'm in favour of the 2nd as you can never mimic exactly ... but defining 
"better" is not easy.

I've found, that using thick lines (for example around buttons) makes 
it look old and childish/unprofessional. Using thin lines looks modern 
and professional. Also big contrast often makes for an old/unprof 
(I lack words) look, while less contrast makes it look top-notch 
or like an architect/designer would prefer.

Also soft (rounded) vs hard (square) corners and gradients as opposed 
to solid colors. MS and Apple have spent billions to get this right, 
and there is still debate about whether they have! ;)

In the 90'ies 3D styles were in, and it was overdone. It's interesting 
to see the GUIs choosen for games. Star Wars Galaxies use a solid 
colour for the edge of buttons, no 3D at all. Like the original Macintosh 
did.

flat, black, white, blue, orange. that's the way to go ;))

I love the original NextSTEP look. It's wonderfully grey, boring, 
clean and sober. Boring, because you'll not be distracted and you 
can get work done.

I agree with Geomol - most of the time I set border of my buttons, 
check-boxes, fields ... to one pixel size :-)

I noticed design of Beer. It was nice - reminded me of amiga - do 
you remember Newtek's Ligtwave?

The fundamental thing which makes one GUI better than others is consistency. 
 period.   design is all about making the looks and feel work for 
target a target audience, but if its inconsistent accross the experience, 
then its instantly unusable for anyone. 
.

IMHO that is  ;-)

IMHO ppl are more turned on widgets,  general functionnallity, simplicity 
than on esthetical issues.  Ashley when do you plan to release  new 
widgets (tabpannel with scrollable header, menu, listview) i'm going 
to start working on treeview widget as usual how do you want data 
to be submitted to it  (data block structure fo ex: [ node_label1 
[ leaf1 leaf2 leaf3 subnode_label2[leaft1 leaf2] etc.. ]])?

I am inclined to agree that consistency is important in GUI design 
(imo. down to the last detail, it reflects competency), but *the* 
most important thing is that form meets function, and a part of this 
is selecting the best possible visual metaphor for the task at hand. 
 While widgets are a means to this end, it's all too easy to overuse 
them.

Now having said that, style is important too.  To most observers, 
WinXP looks better than Win2k looks better than Win98 looks better 
than Win95 looks better than Win3x looks better than ... etc.  Now, 
if you go back the way and use a Win95-style app in WinXP (even the 
Rebol security requester) your (or at least my) first reaction is 
'what's wrong with this app'?

I've thought much lately about the difficulty in introducing a third-party 
style into any given OS environment (which we as cross-platform developers 
must consider short of using native libraries) and it is difficult. 
 The subtleties of eg. OS X and WinXP are far different, so is there 
a happy medium?  I'd like to think so, but having tried /View on 
OS X, I'm not so sure that my previous attempts at platform-neutral 
GUI style are as successful as they could have been (though anti-aliased 
fonts may be a key missing feature).

Chris - hopefully RT does solve linux and os-x situation with fonts 
....

as for me, I can accept different look, even a bit different app 
logic, but not behaviour - keyboard navigation ...

I am e.g. ok with IOS look, but can't stand styles, which don't work 
like native ones ... then each click, key-press which behaves differently, 
is pretty annoying ...

On the one hand, I think that 'form follows function' allows some 
deviation from platform-native style, though this is recommended 
more on a per-application basis (ahem, declaration of interest here). 
 On the other, we can select certain graphics based on platform (system/platform) 
... sorry Petr, still on a riff here ...

we are imo in new era of alternative designs - back to the amiga 
days, where OS is NOT the main part. Your context is the app you 
are working with.

... and maintain small libraries of OS specific graphics.

Petr, I'm going to disagree with you here (re. alternate designs). 
 I think I've made my position clear...

Carl's idea, that e.g. 'list style has to allow borderless design 
is pretty right. Go and look at MS - they WILL come to our living 
rooms with some devices, and you would not want your OS to pop-up 
- but apps will be important. Well, I speak of a different target 
market, but ...

e.g. http://www.mythtv.org, look for screenshots of UI - very View 
like ...

database related apps are different, of course. But then look even 
into MS - they are changing UI guides every 2 - 3 years, with new 
OS, or new Office ...

Your point?

that some kind of apps do not strictly need to keep OS metrics, as 
OS is then just a medium - irrelevant ...

I have heard many times, that if someone will not keep OS guidelines, 
then such app will be throwed out the window. Hah! What an excuse 
.... look at ad-aware - it does not know even keyboard. Look at those 
antivirus suites .... so- my point is, that we don't need to necessarily 
be 100% compatible - that is old ...