Re: [Adobe-source-devel] visual eve editor

[Ralph T. <ra...@gm...>]

That's useful -- I've added it to the wiki. I chatted with Foster a
few days ago and we discussed ways that you could place a new control
in the preview window, highlighting the part of the container where
the control will end up as you suggest.

Also, it's trivial to move items around inside a running Eve -- I've
been able to splice a subtree of the proxy forest into another forest
and then splice it back in somewhere else (always under the same real
widget, though... based on the Win32 experiences it seems like
reparenting widgets is something we can't easily do).

Regarding an XML syntax: one of the things that I like about the
current syntax is that you know at parse time if you're parsing an
integer or a string, e.g.:

  slider( value: 50, name: "a slider" );

Whereas with XML, all attributes look like strings:

  <slider value="50" name="a slider"/>

Unless you make the syntax more verbose:

  <slider>
    <attribute type="int" name="value">50</attribute>
    <attribute type="string" name="name">a slider</attribute>
  </slider>

I'd be interested to hear the opinion of an XML expert on the correct
way to go here :).

Thanks!
 Ralph

On 12/14/06, Sean Parent <sp...@ad...> wrote:
> I have some thoughts - Foster may have some also - he implemented the
> original Expresso -
>
> * The basic UI that I envision is a two view editor - a tree view
> showing the UI elements and a preview.
>
> The tree view should be fairly simple - showing an icon for the view
> type and the name property (after localize is executed) for the item
> - if no name property then the view type is displayed
>
> [] My Dialog
>   -- row
>     () OK
>     () Cancel
>
> * Drag and drop (including multiple items) - should be allowed within
> the tree view as well as between the tree view and preview windows.
>
> * The preview window should be live - meaning you can select elements
> directly in it and drag items around. Items can be dropped into
> containers (containers should highlight to show you where the item
> will be dropped.
>
> * An inspector palette should be present to show you the properties
> of the view selected. I would only show the editable properties and
> possibly organize them into panels - you might want a debugging
> palette or panel which shows the calculated properties. This palette
> should be fairly easy to create with Eve (and Adam) - I've been
> meaning to construct this part with the current system just to show
> the properties of each of the widgets types.
>
>      * Shortcuts for typical properties should be provided - ctrl-
> [ - ] for align left, center, right, etc...
>
> * A palette of the available widgets that can be dropped onto either
> the tree view or the preview would be great.
>
> * Within the inspector palette I would allow expressions - not just
> values - for the properties.
>
> * From an implementation standpoint - the Eve (and Adam) languages
> have been designed to support roundtrip editing - this is why the
> comments are in the syntax - so they can be associated with
> particular elements and carried through an editor. The way to build
> such a beast is to replace the eve_evaluate file that captures the
> information from the parser and populate a structure for the editor
> (possibly using the forest library).
>
> * One implementation hole that I know of at the moment is that there
> is no way way to erase an item from a layout - but I believe that
> could be easily added.
>
> * Bonus points for a live source view
> * Double bonus points for alternative syntaxes (especially an XML
> based one)
> * Triple bonus points for a property model view (a table of cells and
> expressions) - and drag-drop to connect
> * 50 bonus points for a property model visualizer (likely using GrafViz)
>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 9, 2006, at 9:18 PM, Ralph Thomas wrote:
>
> > Hi list,
> >
> >   I plan to implement a few features in my app that would benefit from
> > having some kind of visual eve editor library (I want to use Eve to do
> > page layout for printing photos, and for DVD menu layout). In the ASL
> > Overview there is reference to a "Expresso2" visual editor -- I was
> > wondering if you had any plans on how to implement the app?
> >
> >   Obviously it would be great if I could write a library that could be
> > used by my app and by Expresso2 (or other Eve visual editor tools).
> >
> > Ralph
> >
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