I received a mail about new funcionality of varkon.
I think the main problem of Varkon is the user interface. I mean, it's too different from interface adopted by other applications. The result is that end-user doesn't feel comfortable, and doesn't understand how varkon works.
Probably the simplest way to solve this problem is to use the varkon engine with a GTK or Qt interface.
Probably it's a dream, but I think this is the only way for varkon to become a "system that can beat commercial competitors".
What do you think about this?
Hi!
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One can choose to see the user interface as a combination of logic and visual appearence. Both need to be developed I guess.
The logic could be futher developed and tested using the current approach or with help of some libs I guess. Some has already been done compared to previous versions.
Designing an intutive user interface to a fully parametric CAD system is not easy, nevertheless there are obviosly much that could be done. But we must remember that using a package such as GTK or Qt will not automatically give us the intuitive logic we need.
I have myself no experience from GTK/Qt I can not judge if this is realistic or not. What I know is that Armin has used FLTK to build a demo on some of the varkon sources. It seems to me from information found in forums etc that FLTK is a good choice for Varkon if we should go for an external GUI lib.
It could however be that the best (and most important) is to first continue to develop the logic towards a more intutive and user friendly system, but also to have in mind the possibility to use external libs.
Other opinions?
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I think you're right when you say user interface is a combination of logic and visual appearence.
Varkon's logic appearance is probably too different from the logic of other software. End-user spends a lot of time before starting a drawing with Varkon, he must read some doc to draw a simple line.
A graphical toolkit can be useful for the visual appearance, and FLTK is a good choice: it's very similar to GTK/QT and is a lot faster.
I've followed with a big attention Armin's work, and I think it was very good. Probably his work can be a good starting point.
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I like the Varkon's UI very much. It's very flexible with it's hierarchical menus, it's very easy to customize/build new menus (even dymamicaly form a script or MBS module). I don't think that 'standard' layout with drop down menus and icons bars is well suited for a CAD application. Especially one like Varkon which is VERY different from other systems. I can agree that for average user it looks strange, but it simplifies development of user modules. Maybe for experieced programmers dealing with event loops, calbacks and resources of typical UI toolkits is a piece of cake, but for me writting UI modules in MBS is MUCH easier and faster.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I received a mail about new funcionality of varkon.
I think the main problem of Varkon is the user interface. I mean, it's too different from interface adopted by other applications. The result is that end-user doesn't feel comfortable, and doesn't understand how varkon works.
Probably the simplest way to solve this problem is to use the varkon engine with a GTK or Qt interface.
Probably it's a dream, but I think this is the only way for varkon to become a "system that can beat commercial competitors".
What do you think about this?
Hi!
Some thoughts:
One can choose to see the user interface as a combination of logic and visual appearence. Both need to be developed I guess.
The logic could be futher developed and tested using the current approach or with help of some libs I guess. Some has already been done compared to previous versions.
Designing an intutive user interface to a fully parametric CAD system is not easy, nevertheless there are obviosly much that could be done. But we must remember that using a package such as GTK or Qt will not automatically give us the intuitive logic we need.
I have myself no experience from GTK/Qt I can not judge if this is realistic or not. What I know is that Armin has used FLTK to build a demo on some of the varkon sources. It seems to me from information found in forums etc that FLTK is a good choice for Varkon if we should go for an external GUI lib.
It could however be that the best (and most important) is to first continue to develop the logic towards a more intutive and user friendly system, but also to have in mind the possibility to use external libs.
Other opinions?
I think you're right when you say user interface is a combination of logic and visual appearence.
Varkon's logic appearance is probably too different from the logic of other software. End-user spends a lot of time before starting a drawing with Varkon, he must read some doc to draw a simple line.
A graphical toolkit can be useful for the visual appearance, and FLTK is a good choice: it's very similar to GTK/QT and is a lot faster.
I've followed with a big attention Armin's work, and I think it was very good. Probably his work can be a good starting point.
I like the Varkon's UI very much. It's very flexible with it's hierarchical menus, it's very easy to customize/build new menus (even dymamicaly form a script or MBS module). I don't think that 'standard' layout with drop down menus and icons bars is well suited for a CAD application. Especially one like Varkon which is VERY different from other systems. I can agree that for average user it looks strange, but it simplifies development of user modules. Maybe for experieced programmers dealing with event loops, calbacks and resources of typical UI toolkits is a piece of cake, but for me writting UI modules in MBS is MUCH easier and faster.