View source for WinHugs/Future

These are thoughts on the future of WinHugs. Feel free to directly comment on this page. If no one comments, I'll just assume everyone is happy for me to do whatever :) --[[User:NeilMitchell|Neil Mitchell]] 16:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

WinHugs is now looking pretty good I think, a few things outstanding,
but overall it's quite good to use. Unfortunately the way it's designed
means that it's quite hard to do some enhancements that I would very
much like to make, which would be very cool. However, changing the way
it's designed in this case will also change its user interface quite
substantially, so I thought I'd check with people first.

== The Proposed Change ==

Move from looking and acting like a console, to looking and acting
like IRC. In the current behaviour you type on the console, in IRC you
type in a window at the bottom, and when you press enter your changes are
reflected on the content area.

For an example of the kind of design I mean see
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~miked/images/gyhe_sceengrab2.jpg
(although obviously mine would be prettier :) )

== The advantages for the user ==

You can type a multiline input (maybe), some really cool features
become possible (bracket matching, type information, syntax
hilighting, perhaps even auto-complete)

== The advantages for me ==

Currently the RTF window code is 20% of WinHugs, and it's by far the
most brittle bit (occasionally the text flies around the window, and I
have _no idea_ why). With this change, I can make it more like 3%, and
all really simple stuff. It will also be faster.

== The Question ==

Do users want to change their model of how to use WinHugs? I have used
Gyhe a bit, and it's perfectly usable, just less console like. I think
I prefer the Console style by a small margin, but guess that's because
of habit rather than anything else. And the improvements I could make,
in my opinion, far outweigh the change.

What do other people think? Once I change, there is probably no going back...


Are you crazy? Who wouldn't like the idea? I vote! With fanaticism! --[[User:Uchchwhash|Pirated Dreams]] 17:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
: Would a Mathematica Notebook-like interface ever be possible? The main idea is that the entered text turns into a cell that can be edited later. Whenever a cell is executed all the dependent cells are executed too. Cale thinks it would be great to have declarations as well. monochrom thinks there should be a button  titled "export to module" which would save the cells, replacing existing ones when needed. --[[User:Uchchwhash|Pirated Dreams]] 01:42, 25 January 2008 (UTC)