* [9fans] acme without a heavy grid (SFW) @ 2009-09-29 23:25 Jason Catena 2009-09-30 20:43 ` Jack Norton 2009-10-01 16:49 ` J.R. Mauro 0 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Jason Catena @ 2009-09-29 23:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs A quick edit frees acme from its "heavy grid prison", a la Tufte. https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/502901/acmenogrid.jpg Jason Catena ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] acme without a heavy grid (SFW) 2009-09-29 23:25 [9fans] acme without a heavy grid (SFW) Jason Catena @ 2009-09-30 20:43 ` Jack Norton 2009-09-30 21:41 ` Jason Catena 2009-10-01 0:44 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2009-10-01 16:49 ` J.R. Mauro 1 sibling, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Jack Norton @ 2009-09-30 20:43 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs Jason Catena wrote: > A quick edit frees acme from its "heavy grid prison", a la Tufte. > https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/502901/acmenogrid.jpg > > Jason Catena > > How about no grid whatsoever (while you're at it)? There is plenty of contrast there to forego any kind of hard devisions. However, I end up with the same conclusion: why? Is the 'grid' that distracting? Also, if you have two text files open side-by-side, and your lines are long enough to wrap, you would have a glob of incomprehensible text in the middle. I think at least a moderately thick grid is a necessary evil. -jack ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] acme without a heavy grid (SFW) 2009-09-30 20:43 ` Jack Norton @ 2009-09-30 21:41 ` Jason Catena 2009-10-01 0:44 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Jason Catena @ 2009-09-30 21:41 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 15:43, Jack Norton <jack@0x6a.com> wrote: > Jason Catena wrote: >> A quick edit frees acme from its "heavy grid prison", a la Tufte. >> https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/502901/acmenogrid.jpg > > How about no grid whatsoever (while you're at it)? I believe in a subtle or invisible grid to lay out text in columns, divide columns into files, directories, and output, and whitespace to separate them. I seek to minimize, not deconstruct. > There is plenty of contrast there to forego any kind of hard devisions. I agree that all you really need are left-justified columns of text to show a grid (eg a newspaper). The remaining structural elements (dirty button, scroll bar) are functional, so it would change acme too much to remove or hide them, and would be counter-productive. I used wily for a few years and took out the heavy black horizontal and vertical window lines from it as well. In comparison, Rob's color scheme provides much better separation of tags and windows, so removing them has less effect on the interface. > However, I end up with the same conclusion: why? To increase the ratio of visible, contrasting pixels used to indicate data, program state, and commands, to pixels used to dress the screen. > Is the 'grid' that distracting? The black lines around each window currently have the most contrast (black on beige and light blue), and largest scope (right to left, top to bottom) of any element on the screen. By giving them the least contrast (white on beige and light blue), text and commands become more prominent. The lack of lines between tags serves as leading (vertical space between horizontal lines), making each tag easier to read. > Also, if you have two text files open side-by-side, and your > lines are long enough to wrap, you would have a glob of incomprehensible > text in the middle. I did not remove the scroll bars or dirty bits, which serve as gutters between columns. I agree that without them, run-on text in adjacent columns would be very difficult to read. Fortunately, their functionality makes them easy to keep. > I think at least a moderately thick grid is a necessary evil. I agree that you have to have a grid. I think we disagree on how heavy and obvious you make its structural lines. > -jack Jason Catena ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] acme without a heavy grid (SFW) 2009-09-30 20:43 ` Jack Norton 2009-09-30 21:41 ` Jason Catena @ 2009-10-01 0:44 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Ethan Grammatikidis @ 2009-10-01 0:44 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans On Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:43:28 -0500 Jack Norton <jack@0x6a.com> wrote: > Jason Catena wrote: > > A quick edit frees acme from its "heavy grid prison", a la Tufte. > > https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/502901/acmenogrid.jpg > > > > Jason Catena > > > > > How about no grid whatsoever (while you're at it)? There is plenty of > contrast there to forego any kind of hard devisions. > > However, I end up with the same conclusion: why? Is the 'grid' that > distracting? To provide an additional perspective, I don't think the grid bothers me directly, but something about acme irritates me so much I strongly avoid acme for anything creative and generally loathe starting it up even though I appreciate it's great technical qualities and excelent interface _ideas_. I thought my problem was with the tag text, but Jason's screenshot made me think again. Maybe my problem is with how the tag text interacts with the grid and I could get away with just removing the thick black bars, or maybe I should try the Times font. I think the former more likely. -- Ethan Grammatikidis Those who are slower at parsing information must necessarily be faster at problem-solving. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: [9fans] acme without a heavy grid (SFW) 2009-09-29 23:25 [9fans] acme without a heavy grid (SFW) Jason Catena 2009-09-30 20:43 ` Jack Norton @ 2009-10-01 16:49 ` J.R. Mauro 2009-10-01 17:18 ` [9fans] (no subject) Pablo Alonso Salas Alvarez 1 sibling, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread From: J.R. Mauro @ 2009-10-01 16:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 7:25 PM, Jason Catena <jason.catena@gmail.com> wrote: > A quick edit frees acme from its "heavy grid prison", a la Tufte. If you look in Envisioning Information, he recommends no borders for all windows, except the focused one, which is yellow. Sam does this (with a different shade that isn't as loud) > https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/502901/acmenogrid.jpg > > Jason Catena > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* [9fans] (no subject) 2009-10-01 16:49 ` J.R. Mauro @ 2009-10-01 17:18 ` Pablo Alonso Salas Alvarez 0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Pablo Alonso Salas Alvarez @ 2009-10-01 17:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 9fans [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 83 bytes --] <3aaafc130910010949n143bd697n6b652898233de8f1@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 260 bytes --] _________________________________________________________________ Invite your mail contacts to join your friends list with Windows Live Spaces. It's easy! http://spaces.live.com/spacesapi.aspx?wx_action=create&wx_url=/friends.aspx&mkt=en-us [-- Attachment #3: Type: text/html, Size: 438 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2009-10-01 17:18 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2009-09-29 23:25 [9fans] acme without a heavy grid (SFW) Jason Catena 2009-09-30 20:43 ` Jack Norton 2009-09-30 21:41 ` Jason Catena 2009-10-01 0:44 ` Ethan Grammatikidis 2009-10-01 16:49 ` J.R. Mauro 2009-10-01 17:18 ` [9fans] (no subject) Pablo Alonso Salas Alvarez
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox; as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).