in reply to (OT) OOUI: multiple views in an object.

Having just finished reading the very same article, I had almost exactly the same reaction.

There is a solution, though it's not one that would likely be espoused in an article for JavaWorld:). The answer, to my way of thinking, is HTML, or rather XHTML + stylesheets.

Stylesheets are about the most advanced presentation layer that I know of in terms of their ability to abstract the presentation of information in multiple formats. The audio-abstraction for blind users is there, though I think there are few, if any, implementations around yet. It is also theoretically possible for a table to be converted to a historgram or pie chart (assuming the table contents are transmutable).

Once objects display themselves, in terms of XHTML+stylesheets, the average browser can be used as a UI, which, with some obvious limitations, makes the apps usable from almost anywhere, even via text-only, or audio-only browsers. If the 'command line' facilities within the browsers where improved to include history, local scripting facilities etc., it could be quite a usable system even for those with sufferiing Musophobia:)

As an aside. Opera (and probably others) has a facility for maximising a particular frame on a framed html page. I find this invaluable when you encounter one of those sites that insist upon taking up half the screen with a header, footer and sidebar frames and forcing me to read long articles by scrolling in the small space left over.

It just struck me that it would be a really nice feature if when using a multi line edit field (like the one I'm typing in) if I could hit a key sequence that would expand it to fill the screen. If the browser was already in full screen mode, this would be almost the same as using a full screen CLI. Add the ability to shell commands to the OS and it could be even better.

Then again, an alternative would be to have a key sequence that invoked my favorite editor, allowed me to type my data into tha and the retieved it and posted it into the textarea?

Note. I would only want the above facility if it could ONLY be used from the keyboard, and not from any form of active scripting from the server side.

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"Think for yourself!" - Abigail
Hooray!

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Re: Re: OOUI: multiple views in an object.
by hardburn (Abbot) on Oct 31, 2003 at 14:43 UTC

    Then again, an alternative would be to have a key sequence that invoked my favorite editor, allowed me to type my data into tha and the retieved it and posted it into the textarea?

    Here you go.

    ----
    I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
    -- Schemer

    : () { :|:& };:

    Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated

[reply]
[d/l]
      And of course, lynx. That's nice too. I post with emacs when I'm on a console.
[reply]
      Very cool(++). I used it to post this reply.

      The only pitfall is that it defaults to emacs ;-)

      One small note - I didn't find the keystroke to run the editor documented anywhere. If anyone else tries this extension, Ctrl+E opens your preferred editor.

[reply]

      That, plus a few other things on the same page make me seriously consider re-evaluating moz. The last time I tried it, it was frankly aweful, but that was a long time ago.

      Out of interest - what is the difference between Moz and Firebird?

      Examine what is said, not who speaks.
      "Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
      "Think for yourself!" - Abigail
      Hooray!
      Wanted!

[reply]

        Firebird is basically Mozilla-lite. It's philisophically similar to Galeon, but without the reliance on GTK+/GNOME. Further development of Mozilla will stop soon with all effort now going into Firebird. Other Mozilla sub-projects will take up the other portions of the Mozilla suite, like the e-mail client.

        ----
        I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
        -- Schemer

        : () { :|:& };:

        Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated

[reply]
[d/l]
Re: Re: OOUI: multiple views in an object.
by simonm (Vicar) on Nov 01, 2003 at 04:13 UTC
    It just struck me that it would be a really nice feature if when using a multi line edit field (like the one I'm typing in) if I could hit a key sequence that would expand it to fill the screen.

    OmniWeb has had this feature for a while now: Each multiline text field has a little box that you can click to open up a dedicated editor window that you can resize at will.

[reply]

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