A couple of BIG things...

[stever]

=P~

This is the fun list.... ;)


MS Office style ribbon. Another way to put it is a constrained size toolbar. I have several places where I need to have a lot of buttons (how many is a dynamic question). However, the size of the viewport can also change, yet I want as many of the buttons to show as possible, and ALL to be available somehow (that somehow being in a menu technically). Some buttons have more priority over others.
Carolsel (http://billwscott.com/carousel/) -- like the one by Bill but using Ext and its own way of doing things and using its data models, etc.
ColumnNav (http://www.stringify.com/columnav/) -- this one is adaption of the carosel, and it can be very useful in webpages.
WYSIWYG Editor -- lots of talk about this already. But it would be nice to combine the experience in dealing with the various browsers that TinyMCE has yet using the Ext tools and UI. It would be a great combo!


I have others, but I've tried to constrain myself.

:D

[jack.slocum]

Let us catch up Steve. :)

1. I find this to be this 2nd worst UI decision ever. /:) (right behind menus on the top of the screen instead of the window on Mac OS). Can I ask what you like about it?

2/3: I'll get back to you on these.

4. This is a given and is now on the 1.1 list. :)

[brian.moeskau]

Out of curiosity, do you actually have plans to use these components in a real application, or do you just think they would be interesting to see in Ext? I can see the practical value in a carousel component as they can be used for many different things. Rich editor is a given. But MS Office ribbon and column nav? Are those really useful? I played with the column nav and it seemed (to me at least) less practical than a traditional menu.

[stever]

Let us catch up Steve. :)

Heh! You have done such an amazing job that you have raised our expectations to such a level that I half expect all the wishlist items to be done by the weekend... ;)


1. I find this to be this 2nd worst UI decision ever. /:) (right behind menus on the top of the screen instead of the window on Mac OS). Can I ask what you like about it?

Yeah, on a 30" monitor it can be a real pain to reach to the top of the screen to pull a menu (hey Chris, we are feeling sorry for you!!). I've been using Office 2007 for a while now and so when I see a plain menu bar at all, it feels so 80s.

Here are the three things I like about most the ribbon:

1. Not all toolbar items are the same size or height. Commonly used things ought to be bigger. I guess even Apple is getting in that game (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2637).

2. Nice pretty grouping.

3. What to do if you plan your toolbar for a 30" screen and someone has one smaller? ;) Or the inverse? Honestly, it only matters when you have a lot of options, and that doesn't happen so often in web pages. But we plan on doing a web page editor where you add modules, and when you select a module, you get another tab for that type and all its options. It can really explode, and we don't want the whole page to be buttons and you not see any content....


4. This is a given and is now on the 1.1 list. :)

Wow! I didn't expect so soon! That is awesome! See my note above...


Out of curiosity, do you actually have plans to use these components in a real application, or do you just think they would be interesting to see in Ext? I can see the practical value in a carousel component as they can be used for many different things. Rich editor is a given. But MS Office ribbon and column nav? Are those really useful? I played with the column nav and it seemed (to me at least) less practical than a traditional menu.

The ribbon may be a little specific to one particular need of mine. But it could be integrated into a "full" version of an Ext editor....

I came across the column nav as a solution for the Goto menu at Wayki.com. We could simplify the the Goto menu to show major cities only, and use a dialog with a column nav to browse through all cities as subdivided by all various geographical regions. It only matters when there is a lot of data and a lot of submenus. Americas->North Armerica->USA->Califonia->Los Angeles type of stuff. A combo box where people type a city is best if you know where you want to go, but some people like to browse...

So if I were to reorder things:
#4
#2
#1
#3

The editor and the carousel are hard to live without. We already use them, having to bring in other big libs to do it.

I'll need something like the ribbon by (late?) summer. I guess I can live without column nav, but if there was a carousel for reference, I might also be able to implement it myself...

[dawesi]

One vote for the dynamic ribbon here. You'd have to check the licencing tho...

the other thing is that it's a known interface... and one (unfortunately) we all need to get used to...

I've had lots of requests for that kind of interface on projects and would find that hind of menu extremely useful... I now (after using the interface for a while) quite like it and would find it a great interface for at least one of my apps...

[ask]

Woah.

I didn't know what the "ribbon" thing was and haven't tried it (we're all OS X, Linux and FreeBSD), but I looked up some screenshots. Awful! At least it looks like a good ol' mess. "We couldn't figure out to make the user interface easily accessible so we'll just dump everything in a big blob here". No thanks from me. Consider this a negative feature request to not spend time making helpers for this. :-)


- ask

[dawesi]

So awful millions are using it everyday...


I didn't know what the "ribbon" thing was and haven't tried it

So you've had your head in the sand for two years and haven't tried it, but don't want it.... riiiight...


We couldn't figure out to make the user interface easily accessible

Hehe... the funny thing is you've looked at screenshots of a dynamic menu, then make comments about it. Do you seriously think anyone will take you seriously when you 1) haven't heard about it and 2) have never seen it and 3) have never used it?? Maybe because it is the 'Microsoft' ribbon device... I'll let people pass their own judgements.

The Microsoft ribbon device is an extroadinary interface. It is very popular not only in Microsoft circles, but in a lot of other areas also. Check out MS office for Mac... and there it is! It's a matter of time before one appears for ext as it's a very popular interface as it is extremely accessable intuative interface... unless of course you want to use finder to find something that should be right in front of you...

[SmyersM]

To add my two cents.

There is nothing new in Office 2007.

People come to me and say "WOW I love the new features in Office 2007. I can add headings and styles to my documents, i dont have to highlight every headline and say "bold" "25 pt" i just click "header" and it works! They should have thought of that ages ago"

Actually, they did. Styles have been a part of Word for 10 years, but it was hidden behind a menu and property dialog box and frankly no one knew about it. (Except the comp sci people like me).

The ribbon brings the features and lays them out in a nice user friendly way.

menus are for computer people, ribbons are for everyone else.

[ask]

So you've had your head in the sand for two years and haven't tried it, but don't want it.... riiiight...

Hi Dawesi,

I don't use Windows -- or Microsoft Office for that matter, so no, I hadn't seen it before. All my work is development (web applications and related stuff) and scalability consulting and performance tuning of Linux servers and the typical "LAMP stack".

At our startup we're all on Macs (except our business guy who hasn't upgraded yet ;-) ) and when I do consulting work I generally work with people on Macs or Unix-y something (or they're on an old version of Windows - big corporations...).

Trust me, it's possible to make a perfectly good living without seeing more Microsoft products than an occasional IE window for testing.

You have a good point that the screenshots likely don't do it justice. I'm willing to be dazzled by how useful it is if it gets implemented in ExtJS. :-)


- ask