Some suggestions and ideas
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#6 Some suggestions and ideas
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5
2003-12-12
2002-07-21
No
>> It wasn't until a few years after choosing Morbus
did I realize it meant "disease" in Latin. <
Hi Morbus. It was fun to find this. I've got a story like
that: I had the typical "me and my 10 year old
brother" software company, when I was at school. I
named it "Dextri". It simply came out of my mind.
Years later I found it means "right" in Latin...Not a
word I'd like to identify myself with...
ANYWAY, I'm writing to you to make some
suggestions for next version:
- Add big buttons for "Refresh Channels" and "Open
browser" in the OS GUI.
- Ask for confirmation when deleting a channel.
- I don't know if it would be too messy to code, but
what about being able to change the name of the
Channel. Some channels have pretty generic (unuseful)
names, as webstandards.org's "buzz" .
- The "/" symbol is too breadcrumb-like to use for a
menu. Not as breadcrumb-like as ">", but certainly
more than "::" "|". Or you can try a low profile table.
- what about adding DHTML show/hide support in the
main "channels home" listing (with a subtle enough
cue, of course, to avoid featuritis).
I see I'm thinking about skins. I'll make a new skin for
ampheta asap.
Can you email me < killerking@cyberjunkie.com > the
source for your logo? I'd like to try some ideas on the
design.(including making a subtler bg and getting rid
of the "desk", you don't need to be so denotative)
I'm also thinking of an always visible DHTML menu
(you know, the ones that stay visible when you scroll
down) which points to each feed. So when I finish
reading the latest posts, I don't have to scroll through
the ones I've read already.
Well, enough ranting. Best
-- manuel
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Hey there, killerking. Most of what you want can be done
already in the code, either through simple API calls or
quick perl code in the templates. I'll try and go over each
of your suggestions. If you have any questions, be sure to
respond here, through the amphetadesk-develop list, or via
my email.
- "Big GUI buttons." Why do you want this? I'm a bit adverse
to adding this, for one major reason: there's no easy way I
can do it in the Mac GUI, and I dislike adding features that
can't be used by everyone (you'll see more of these ideals
later on in this response). In a future version of
AmphetaDesk, there are plans for a "Refresh Channels" button
being part of the HTML templates. Either way, the "Tools"
and Systray options don't "work" for you?
- "Ask for confirmation before channel deletion". This is
currently possible on the "x" box on the main "Channels
Home" page (and on the "My Channels" page with a bit more
thought). When you click on that box, it sends a delete_url
CGI parameter to the internal webserver. You could easily
add a confirm_deletion popup (which, on a "Yes, Do It"
click, would then send the delete_url off). Adding new CGI
parameters like this is easy - if you pass a
"confirm_deletion" parameter, then it's available anyway in
AmphetaDesk (either in the source code under lib/, or in the
templates/) as "param('confirm_deletion')".
- "Renaming Channels". In the current version of
AmphetaDesk, it's possible, but the behavior will change in
the next version, so I wouldn't depend on it for future use
(the behavior change will integrate your suggestion as well
as a generic "notes" field). The key is an API command
called "set_my_ channels_data", and you can read more about
it under lib/AmphetaDesk/ MyChannels.pm. Basically, you pass
the URL of the channel, the field you want to modify, and
then the modified text. It'd be relatively easy to hook this
into the "My Channels" page (using CGI parameters in a POST,
and then using this API call in the templates). Again, this
feature will probably be built into the lib/ code sometime soon.
- "The / Symbol is Too BreadCrumby". Hmm. I almost agree
with you here. I think long ago, it *was* a pipe, but I
changed to the / because the / was more "Action"-ey (yeah, I
know). :: is probably too non-standardish to make sense to
everyone around (I use it in some other projects with a
different audience).
- "Adding DHTML support". This would never be part of the
default template, mainly because it can't be used in every
browser out there. I'd be willing to ship a decent looking
template that did use DHTML support though. You may want to
take a look see at deus_ex's template mod too (most of which
should be part of the next version):
http://www.decafbad.com/news_archives/000187.phtml
- The Photoshop version of the logo should be coming to you
shortly. The background on the image is actually transparent
- I use a cutesy table bgcolor hack to create what you're
seeing. As for the desk icon, it'll probably stay to offset
the drug/narcotics connotation. But yes, we did test logos
without the desk (as well as better rendered 3D desktops).