|
|
the other two things and also.
Sep 16 2010 on group KDE 4.x Core Prototyping
|
My other thought was that the GUI builder/runner could also work as a widget set, theme, window decoration builder too.
So that you could tinker with the various elements, using a nice safe domain specific language and environment and then test things in native applications on the desktop.
The other 2 things I wanted to kick off relate to drilling down through applications.
the 1st is something where by you click on an app, think xkill, and it brings up a app inspector, a bit like systemguard I suppose, and then it lets you see all the app information and drill down and manipulate all the components of the application.
Apart from inspection and manipulation, it could be used to identify missing translations / help and that kind of thing as well as extract elements etc..
The 2nd is related to the first, but for screen grabs. The existing screen capture tool will capture the application window, but I think it would be really handy if it could drill down through the components etc... this could then be used to create HTML image maps and the like for embedding in documentation and allowing the reader to click through on elements of the application.
I suppose if you then related this back to the first you could do some quite nicely point and click style integrated help where the user clicks on a window element and the help is brought up for it, or opens the help and uses clicks on the window element/s to add search parameters. (I realise what's this does something a little like that already, but it's often missing or incomplete (hence part of the reason for the 1st) and it doesn't link into the main body of the help, or enable multiple elements to be clicked on. (imagine I click on three text input boxes that have unrelated high level functionality, but are all text boxes at a lower level. I'd then get help for text boxes bubbled to the top of my search, and then help for the high level function of each in the application, shown lower in the search results. |
|
 |
|
|
prototyping
Sep 16 2010 on group KDE 4.x Core Prototyping
|
I've been reviewing some of my older ideas (some of them have made it into KDE 4 in one form or another!!), and also coming up with some new ones and looking at what can be done, and where the holes are.
I'm now at a position where I want to start prototyping/storyboarding some stuff, pictures and hollywood software work a lot better than words I've found.
The problem of rapid prototyping seemed to be a bit of a stumbling block. Sure there are things like commander, and lots of GUI builders but they just give you what you've got, there are no RAD tools that let you play around with UI concepts and easily produce 'hollywood' software that can be extended via backends and datastores to add more functionality etc...
So, my current focus is on producing a prototype of a tool for producing prototypes, a tool that allows a mix of opsudo-functionality and precise, layers, scalable overlays of pre-rendered or pre-recoded simulated functionality.
Ideally such a tool would work as a domain specific Dialogue and Widget and component builder, where all design elements of the widgets could be modified and over-ridden, and system native widgets/components could be swapped in and out, with features gracefully downgraded, and something like SVG or pre-recorded animations slotted in perfectly to match the GUI and the data entered by the tester.
My initial thoughts were to start by developing an application that could be used to quickly prototype plasma widgets, since that's got a million and one backend scripting engines, it seemed like most of the work may already have been done.
Unfortunately Kubuntu-backports PPA seems to have been broken (at least for me) since 4.5.0 Beta, even on another machine that only had 4.4 installed, the upgrade to 4.5.1 was broken in the same fashion and for some odd reason they've built and added dependencies on a RC of QT4, hardly a backport more of a dumping area.
So now I have two immediate aims, 1st a prototype builder, Abstract GUI builder/runner and 2nd something to write and automate burn in tests for the KDE Software compilation and actually do a bit of QA on the stuff that ubuntu dump on me so I don't end up dumping it on someone else. |
|
|
|
looking for suggestions
Sep 1 2010 on group KDE 4.x Core Prototyping
|
Hi,
I've just started up this group and am hoping people will join and provide suggestions for enhancements that are currently out their so that I can start putting some packages together, for both standalone enhancements and patches.
The intent is to split things off into groups or sets of enhancements initially and then build up into packages that are nicely integrated together.
Initially the split for packages is intended to be, standalone, and then based on the development phase of the enhancements and patches. |
|
|
Search people
Current visitors
New users
Birthdays
Most active users
Back
|
|
