Re: Options and choises rant

[Christopher Armstrong]

On Mon, 2006-01-16 at 00:32 +0100, Stefan Urbanek wrote:
> With this, "wise developer" would provide complete application menu  
> with all possible commands. This can be called "Expert" menu layout.  
> Then developer who thinks of beginners will take the full structure  
> and hide unnecessary menu items. An now you have two menu structures:  
> Expert and Basic.
> 
> Imagine sharing menu structure in a group of users ... By level, the  
> division is obvious. But with this, one can do more. Imagine photo  
> retouching application: you can have menu layouts for people who do  
> lots of resizing and cropping mainly, another menu layout for people  
> who do color adjustments mainly... Each group can have their  
> preferred, easy to use menu structure.
> 
> No need for more .nib files, just a mechanism of hiding menu items  
> according to the menu preference.
> 
> What do you think?

I like this idea. Actually, considering the design of GNUstep, this is
already quite possible. Customise the nib file yourself, removing
options you don't use and don't want access to, and slip it into the
appwrapper. Invent a new language if you want multiple nibs: "Simple"
and "Expert". But an API would be a better design, and why can't we
extend GNUstep with specific measures that make it easier to use and
customise?

Chris

-- 
Christopher Armstrong <carmstrong at fastmail dot com dot au>