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Sounds like this is a discussion for one of the windowing notesfiles,
but we're all Amigaphiles here and lots of us want to see some
improvements to the current set up.
I can certainly believe the 99% number. I don't even have a copy of
LoadWB on my normal start up disk. I have to hunt one down whenever
I want to show somebody a demo.
There are several user interfaces where the normal access is iconic.
Apollo and Xerox's XDE are two such systems. They are include default
tools for editting all files. File types are a useful idea in this
type of environment.
I would be willing to use an iconic interface on the Amiga if it
offerred me some advantage over CLI. CLI is certainly very primative,
but at least I have access to all files and can do some limited
If I could draw a pipeline on the screen, starting with a file,
into program 1, then to program 2, and finally to a 'new file' icon,
I'd definitely use such an interface. This last item should create a
file but should also have the ability to be displayed until it is
closed.
A cute feature on a pipe in use would be a display of the number
of bytes that had flowed through it.
It would certainly get pretty messy on the screen if you had more
than one of these pipelines going at once.
Of course, a set of programs is often more complex than a simple
linear flow of data. It could be a net of programs and files.
It would be nice to be able to build such a net graphically.
You would select the 'task builder' tool which would open a window
which would be the canvas for the picture you build of your network
of tasks. You could drag tools (programs) and files from the WB screen
into this window, then draw pipes linking them.
I'd certainly like to have a discussion of this topic continue.
It sounds like we could come up with some very intriguing ideas.
James Synge.
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Re: .1
Where are pipes in the CLI? Nowhere. I assume this was an oversight.
There's no reason not to use them and intergrate them into a metaphorical
interface, though; is there?
I know there are system monitor programs out there. Someday I'll have to
go get them. Ideally, they could be integrated into The_Hackers_WorkBench
as is. I'd like to work on these things too, BUT: I have yet to steel
myself for yet another soaking for yet another developers manual for yet
another windowing system; and, I'm hot for this interpreted C environment
(which I call The_C_Machine) that I'm trying not to work on >8 hrs/day.
Can you tell me/us in a nutshell what nifty ideas ZING embodies? First of
all, is it an editor, shell, or utility? Also (for example, if it is a
shell) does it have command recall/editing? Command history, input, and
output in seperate windows? As a source of ideas -- "a starting place" --
ZING sounds promising.
Re: .2
I'd rather not follow yet another notes file. Someone who already does can
probably let us know how other systems present system structures/objects,
and allow the user to modify them.
As in Re to .1, please let us know about the ideas in Apollo and Xerox's
XDE about presenting and modifying system structures (and how they might
apply to the Amiga). Default editors of different types of files sounds
like the MacIntosh too. Where could we hook this kind of information into
AmigaDos? Use filenotes as scripts to execute when a file is
double-clicked?
If you're psyched about the iconic pipe idea, please feel free to write it
for me (scratch that, for YOU, write for yourself :-).
What about complexity control? It could easily get messy. A 'task
builder' that creates a new screen or window for each "command" would keep
things clean, but do you really want to "click your way down" to the files
of concern in each new screen/command? I suppose the Current Directory
could be reflected in a directory window automatically opened (reused?) in
each new screen/command. In fact, we now have the possibility of more than
one Current Directory!
Etc.
I would also like to see this discussion continue. (I'd also like to see
some software. I could probably take some time away from The_C_Machine,
but I don't relish taking some money out of my wallet to get the Intuition
manual.) Anyway, I apparently AM willing to "waste" my morning, so here's
some more musing inspired by the Lisp Machine environment, the Scheme
Machine, and a multitude of other acquaintances.
The job of the primitive CLI (e.g. CLI!) is to collect names and load the
object indicated by one with the others are arguments. Interacting with
the CLI consists almost entirely of typing names. (That's why recall and
editing are often the first things to appear in a new shell!) The
Hackers_WorkBench will have to do this kind of thing FAST AS GREASED
LIGHTNING in order to "compete". In principle, this looks entirely
feasible. First of all, I wouldn't want file objects to be presented as
anything bigger than a boxed filename. Then a directory wouldn't take up
much more room than a directory listing! If a directory window is made
parameterizable so that it could sort and filter files, then we've
basically got a nifty directory editor like the ones found on the Lisp
Machine or Chipmunk (Scheme Machine). Naming a file consists of one click
per directory level. In principle, this could be really fast. In
practise, we are bounded by the time to display a directory window.
Unfortunately, "AmigaDog sucks rocks" as one "admirer" put it. I suppose
we'll have to cache (ideally all) directories in memory. How expensive is
that, do you suppose? Who wants to find out, do you suppose?
One big thing I'm concerned about is how to subsume the functionality of
a good shell like Matt Dillon's. Pipes and redirection have a ready-made
iconic metaphor -- i.e., pipes! But what about shell scripts? Command
recall/editing? Perhaps the 'task builder' could generate new tasks from
old, edited commands/screens. Shell scripts, though. That's a toughy.
However, in the interpretive C environment of my C_Machine(tm) (<--
FACETIOUS trademark notice) script files will be automagically reduced to
machine code. In terms of a graphical metaphor, perhaps a 'script
builder' screen can organize a sequence of 'task builder' commands/screens
in a flowchart-like description of the script. Sounds wild, doesn't it?
No, I'm not "tripping"...
I don't THINK I'm tripping...
Am I tripping?
Someone want to do a (tactful) sanity check here?
-Matt
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| re: .-1 sanity check? is that a fun thing to do? :-)
Look at some technical docs on the Microsoft Windows interface.
They are trying to sell a windowing interface to an large, established
base of CLI users.
The window interface has lots of keyboard equivalences for things
you can do with the mouse. And gives you the choice of tiled windows
or pop-up (overlapping) windows. Directories are displayed as
filenames, you double-click on the filename you want to run.
Intuition could learn a few things from them.
Windows doesn't have the front/back gadgets or sliding screens,
it seems to prefer tiled screens with scroll bars.
-dave
p.s. i like the discussion, how to represent CLI functions in a
windowing interface raises lots of interesting questions.
The Amiga could use a lot more powerful workbench even for the
non-hacker.
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