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 :) --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 (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! --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. --Pirated Dreams 01:42, 25 January 2008 (UTC)