Need information on SunView 2.0 and compatibility

[Chuck Musciano]

> If anyone can outline what
> SunView 2.0 will support in both the new features and compatibility
> department, I would be greatfull.

Well, I went right to the source at SUG (Tony Hoeber) and asked how hard
it would be to convert to View 2.  The first answer is, "A mostly
mechanical operation".  When pressed, I discovered that all of the gadget
sizes change, so I will be forced to recompose every panel in my tools.
When I complained about this, Hoeber really didn't have an answer.  Now,
the question is, do I want to do the work to become View 2 (real name:
Open Look) compatible?  Does Open Look give me so much added functionality
that I simply cannot avoid it?  Right now, I think the answer is "no".

Unfortunately, I think that Sun View applications will not run under the
X11/NeWS server without being recompiled as View 2 applications.  I am
seriously considering creating an X toolkit that is identical to Sun View,
so I can seamlessly port my tools to X11/NeWS.  Anyone out there have such
a beast?  Anyone interested in working on one?  How hard could it be?

In an earlier posting, I asked for people's opinions regarding Open Look.
I'll start the ball rolling with these:

     1) In the December '88 Byte, Hoeber says: "The Open Look design
	team envisioned a typical user who wants to switch easily between
	Open Look, the Mac Finder, and the Presentation Manager.  We
	therefore ruled out design possibilities that would make this
	switch too difficult".  Show of hands please: how many Sun Spots
	readers find themselves making this switch?  I may rarely use the
	Mac, and I by God will never use the Presentation Manager, but
	I'll use this Sun every day for (hopefully) many years.  I think
	Sun users are being sold out for mass market appeal.

     2) Several times during the SUG Open Look seminar, when asked why a
	certain feature was or wasn't included, the answer was based upon
	"psychological reasons" or attempts to "reduce mouse motion".  So,
	I asked Hoeber exactly what cognitive psychological analysis Sun
	had done to measure the interface.  The reply: none.  Hoeber says
	that to do so would have meant that Open Look would have been
	tuned against only one criteria, rather than several criteria.  I
	contend that psychological testing of what is being pushed as "The
	Interface" is warranted, and should be considered as one of many
	evaluative tools.  In light of the fact that no testing was
	performed, Hoeber et al should stop using psychological reasons
	for feature justification.  The bottom line is that features were
	included based upon the intuition of the Open Look team.

     3) I have real problems with the scroll bars.  The elevators are
	small, and (I think) require some serious hand/eye coordination to
	hit the correct button.  Visual distinction between the elevator
	cable and the solid cable (indicating the size of the displayed
	region) is hard, much harder than the scroll bars currently in use
	in Sun View.  There are not specialized mousing events for scroll
	bars like Sun View which allow the various "jump line to top" or
	"jump top to middle".  This was done to make the interface easier
	to learn.  Again, I think this is a tilt towards novices at the
	expense of experts.

     4) One nice feature is pinup menus, which hang around, letting you
	select multiple buttons from the menu.  However, there is no clear
	consistent way to determine which pinup menu is associated with
	which application.  Hoeber indicated that color was one way, but I
	have a monochrome system.  A problem with no apparent solution.

     5) The raging controversy over click-to-type versus mouse-focus makes
	me wonder exactly who was interviewed to design Open Look.  The
	design team seems truly surprised by how adamant people are about
	the style they like, yet thay also tell us that many people were
	considered before Open Look was completed.  The issue of
	click-to-type never came up?  If click-to-type is not a user
	configurable option (which the Open Look team was considering) I
	will NEVER user Open Look.

     6) Another undefined issue (at least, my office mate could not get
	the answer from an Open Look person): if you have click-to-type
	set, and click in a window, does this also set the insert point in
	text windows?  If so, isn't this confusing?  If not, does this
	mean that two clicks are required when preparing to type into a
	text window, one to set the focus, and another to set the insert
	point?  [[ That is one big reason why your moderator really hates
	click-to-type.  Usually one click does both, and that's usually
	not what I want.  --wnl ]]

Well, that's enough for now.  Any other thoughts?

Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(407) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck at trantor.harris-atd.com