[REBOL] Re: percent! - new datatype request
From: joel:neely:fedex at: 21-Jun-2002 17:34
Hi, Gregg,
Noooooo!!!!
Gregg Irwin wrote:
> << YMMV; but my experience is that when I'm designing a palm-top-sized
> display, I'll want to lay out a screen in a totally different way that
> I would for a desktop-/laptop-sized screen. >>
>
> That assumes you know where your app is running. :) Historically, this would
> be true because you would have to port your app to those platforms. So, I
> guess another question is: Should we continue down the path of
> platform-specific designs or try to create cross platform UIs?
>
My choice of wording was deliberate:
... a palm-top-SIZED display ... desktop-/laptop-SIZED screen ...
I did not say I wanted to know where my app was running, but was talking
about the design characteristics of the user interface vis-a-vis the
SIZE of the current display environment.
Having designed apps that would run on very small and very large screen
sizes, I have seen many cases in which I do not believe that the same
widget layout could be scaled sucessfully from 240 pixels wide up to
1024 or 1600 pixels wide.
I suggest that the program should be able to inquire of its current
execution environment for the dimensions of the current display, and
then select a layout (or chioce of layouts) that the application,
workflow, or GUI designer(s) have prepared for displays in that range.
> << That assumes that making the window larger keeps the font sizes the same.
>
> It seems to me that sometimes that would be the desired effect, but that
> sometimes one would like the fonts to scale up with the window. Just an
> observation that we have one more moving part here. >>
>
> Resizing and scaling are two completely distinct features/behaviors. Scaling
> implies that *everything* scales uniformly. Mixing the two behaviors is a
> design error IMO.
>
I simply meant that there's a need for both, although often under
different
circumstances (but not always). For example:
- I often use a particular 3270 emulator that knows that it can only
display 25x80 characters, so when the window is stretched the fonts
scale proportionately.
- I was recently giving a presentation in a large room using a video
projector on my laptop. I popped up a terminal window to one of our
hosts to show ... something or other. I normally use fairly small
font sizes to allow me to have as much content as possible on my
screen, but the audience had trouble reading the window. I wanted
both the window and the fonts to enlarge.
- Sometimes when I enlarge a terminal window its because I want more
lines
(or wider lines, or both), but in this scenario I want everything
zoomed
up. Also, sometimes (e.g. when my eyes are tired) I'll enlarge a
term
window and the fonts so I can lean back in my chair and look at the
screen for a while from a longer distance than usual.
Having both as choices to be exercised appropriately is A Good Thing
IMHO.
-jn-
