MROBINSON@wash-vax.bbn.com (08/15/89)
I guess 1.4 is farther off than I had thought, so I'll add another comment to the wishlist for 1.4. General comment: Commodore, please include a few demo programs (with source) that show how to use the facilities Intuition provides for gadgets to do some of the things that people want to use gadgets for, like using masks to make rounded buttons, and making proportional gadgets for scrolling and selecting colors. My belief is that the more available these examples are, the more people will use them, and demand them from developers. I would think that this simple act on Commodore's part may provide a good return in how self- conscious Amiga developers are about how their applications look to a user. Specific comment: Has anyone else seen the OpenView scrollbars in action? They are the easiest scrolling/proportional gadgets to use that I have ever seen, and I would like to see them appear on Amigas (maybe in 1.4). The essentials that I like are these: there are five places the user can click, corresponding to the actions "all the way up", "up a unit (page)", "drag me to where you want", "down a unit (page)", "all the way down". The "all the way" controls are at the end of the gadget. The "up", "drag", and "down" controls are bunched together on the bubble that shows where you are proportionally, as it slides between the "all the way" controls. Finally, the mouse jumps with the bubble as it moves in response to the "up" and "down" controls. All of this combines to make using the gadget very easy. You always manipulate the bubble for moving short distances, and only have to go to the ends if you want to move the bubble all the way to the end. The controls are very intuitive (certainly much more so than SunView scrollbars, which have got to be some of the least useful UI components I've ever seen). So, is there any chance of something like this making it into Intuition 1.4? --Max