TUNES UI

[Chris Harris]

Dear Fare,
     I should apologize to you, and the other TUNES people, for not 
maintaining the UI stuff better so far.  I'm just a man/boy/whatever of 
too many interests, and am having a large difficulty sorting out what is 
going to be most important.  I guess my only reasonable excuse is that 
most people haven't been doing too much else (except you, of course), but 
that doesn't hold up too well.  So I will attempt to make a better 
effort, somehow....

     I have a half-completed e-mail about the UI that I might be able to 
send out tonight.  Has a half-direction to go in, although it won't be 
the most conclusive.  Also could update the mail archive, although that 
is less motivating, seeing how it looks like that might have to all be 
re-done sometime in the future.

     I don't seem to be understanding active annotations either, and am 
also having trouble understanding how you can write code before a HLL 
syntax exists.  I would like to help with the syntax, I believe, but we 
need a bit more clarification here.  (Have to remember that not all of us 
here have been programming for a decade or two.  hehe...)

     I should also let you know that I'll be leaving on Saturday for a 
two week trip to Costa Rica.  There might be some time for thinking about 
TUNES on the plane trips, but I think we're going to be pretty busy 
there, and I do have some homework I need to do too.  Guess I really need 
to get something for TUNES done this week!

     Finally, I know I've probably asked this enough times to be really 
anoying, but any suggestions you have about what GUI I might be wanting 
to learn for UI experiements would be most welcome.  I might still 
remember something about mac programming, but I'd rather not touch that 
machine, as it uses a  16 mhz 68020, and just isn't fast at all.  I've 
played minimally with svgalib for linux, but that's a bit weird and 
non-standard.  That leaves X, I guess, but there doesn't seem to be an 
easy way to start working with that.  Does this mean we'll have to get a 
basic TUNES kernel off the ground before we can really do any work on the 
visual side of the UI?  (Is anyone working on a kernel now, by the way?  
Sounded like you had some boot code, but what does that involve?  Is our 
first version depending on the BIOS, like MOOSE was?  Anything else you'd 
like to answer?  =)

-Chris

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ignorance is bliss, but where do you get the idea that knowledge can't
be even better?" -- me (Chris Harris <chharris@u.washington.edu>)
Check out my web page: http://weber.u.washington.edu/chharris

On Sat, 18 Mar 1995, Francois-Rene Rideau wrote:

> Dear Chris,
>    I mail you because TUNES is too slowly evolving.
> What do you think about my last mail ? What do you intend to do about the
> UI project ? What difficulties do you face ? What schedule do you have ?
> 
>    Particularly, I'd like you to help me design the HLL syntax.
> We shall write real examples. Let's write code first, and choose the
> syntax accordingly afterwards.
> 
>    Here is an example of the syntax I want:
> "
> Maintain the list of users logged in.
> Maintain the log of users logging in.
> Make this list available in the system status menu.
> "
>    As this is actively annotating the login object, this object must be
> available for active annotations. Afterwards, we can close this login
> object, at least to everyone but a very restricted user.
> 
>    Now, for more user interface, I think I've not been clear enough about
> what I mean about active annotations. Do you understand it anyway ? Can you
> help me explain it to everyone ? Can you write other examples ? Can you
> explore the range of its capabilities ? And the way it can be efficiently
> implemented ?
> 
> N.B.: be sure to mail me patches to you UI pages, so I can update the
>    TUNES distribution.
> --    ,        	                                ,           _ v    ~  ^  --
> -- Fare -- rideau@clipper.ens.fr -- Francois-Rene Rideau -- +)ang-Vu Ban --
> --                                      '                   / .          --