[IPython-dev] Help testing new UI for the notebook

[Aaron Meurer]

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Brian Granger <ellisonbg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Aaron,
>
> Thanks for looking at this!
>
> On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 5:36 AM, Aaron Meurer <asmeurer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi.
>>
>> I just tried them both. I used Chrome.
>>
>> In wihmoize:
>>
>> - There is a bug where the menus can remain blue after the menu has
>> disappeared.
>
> Yep, that is one that I can't easily fix.
>
>> - The menus are maybe a little choppy, but it's not too bad. The menus
>> are too slow to disappear after being deselected, but that's annoying
>> at best. Granted, Chrome is the most responsive browser, and I didn't
>> try it in others. If anything, this is more responsive, in terms the
>> UI updating when I move up and down in the menus.  Also, the popup
>> dialogs felt a little more responsive (i.e., when moving them around),
>> but the difference on my machine could be considered negligible.
>
> Interesting.  I am on Chrome and the choppiness (compared with the
> dewijmoize version) is horrible.  The behavior of the popups should be
> exacly the same though.

It's not.  The one animates and the other doesn't.

>
>> - As far as UI goes, I like this one better.  I guess you'll have to
>> play around with a lot of actual use to see if automatically opening
>> the menu or only when clicked is better (given the precedence of
>> virtually every other GUI, though, it's probably the latter).
>
> Yes, I agree that click to open is more standard.  Unfortunately that
> mode is completely broken in the Wijmo and the devs have not responded
> to my emails.
>
>> In dewhimoize:
>>
>> - There is a similar bug to above. If you click on a menu, then click
>> again to deselect, it still remains highlighted.
>
> Yes, I have seen this as well, although it is more difficult to
> trigger than in the wijmoize version.

I can reproduce it consistently by clicking on the menu name to close the menu.

>
>> - Selecting the first menu item when the menu is open and the mouse is
>> over the menu title is confusing (I first thought it was some kind of
>> "default" or something).
>
> Yes, for now we are stuck with this.  We would have to contribute code
> to jquery to fix this.  But at least that is an option (Wijmo is not
> openly developed as there is a commercial version).
>
>> Unless these things are hard-coded into the libraries, I don't see any
>> difference between the two yet to suggest one over the other.
>> Obviously some things are implemented in one that aren't in the other.
>
> Yes most of the things you bring up are hard-coded.  Because jquery is
> openly developed and has a solid community, it makes me more at ease.
>
>> Unrelated note: I noticed that the SymPy docs link in the help menu
>> links to the dev docs.  This should probably link to the release docs.
>
> OK I will fix that.
>
>> Aaron Meurer
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 10:51 PM, Brian Granger <ellisonbg at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have developed a new menu based UI for the notebook.  There are two versions:
>>>
>>> * One that uses Wjimo (a jQuery widget library):
>>>
>>> https://github.com/ellisonbg/ipython/tree/wijmoize
>>>
>>> This Wijmo based version was my first attempt.  Wijmo has a very
>>> polished look (we have been using one of its themes "Aristo" for
>>> months now).  But, as I got going, I found that the usability of the
>>> menus was lacking.  The menu flyout animation is clunky and slow, I
>>> can't get the menus to open with a click (only on mouseover) and there
>>> are lots of minor glitches.  Documentation is also not great and no
>>> one has replied to multiple posts on their forums.
>>>
>>> * One that uses a dev branch of jQueryUI:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/ellisonbg/ipython/tree/dewijmoize
>>>
>>> jQuery UI has been working on menu/menubar widgets for some time now.
>>> The version I am using is in a dev branch (not even master).
>>> Surprisingly, the usability is much better than the Wijmo based
>>> version.  Everything is snappy and quick and things just work.  jQuery
>>> UI is pretty solid, so even though this is pre-release quality, I
>>> trust it - and it tends to be clean, well documented code.  Downsides:
>>> we are back to a basic jquery theme, no keyboard shortcuts in menu
>>> items.
>>>
>>> 1: PLEASE play with the notebook in both of these branches and give me
>>> feedback.  I am moving quickly these days, so we need to decide on
>>> which version we like better ASAP.
>>>
>>> 2. If we move away from Wijmo, we will be stuck with the basic theme
>>> for now.  We can use themeroller to *help* us generate a new theme,
>>> but it will be ome extra work as the themes it generates don't work
>>> with the dev version:
>>>
>>> http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/
>>>
>>> Happy notebooking!
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Brian
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Brian E. Granger
>>> Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo
>>> bgranger at calpoly.edu and ellisonbg at gmail.com
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> IPython-dev mailing list
>>> IPython-dev at scipy.org
>>> http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/ipython-dev
>
>
>
> --
> Brian E. Granger
> Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo
> bgranger at calpoly.edu and ellisonbg at gmail.com