[racket-dev] Revision to the Language Dialog

Well, I can't say that I'm excited about the prospect of going back to
that dialog. My goal is to move towards no language dialog at all
eventually and that change would not be a step in that direction.

While we wait for others' opinions, I've pushed something that makes
the ellipsis clickable, at least.

On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Eli Barzilay <eli at barzilay.org> wrote:
> Yesterday, Matthias Felleisen wrote:
>>
>> I second Sam's suggestions.
>>
>> -- I would use "The Racket Language" for the first line of the first
>
> +117
>
> (I see it in the new dialog, but looks like the language still has the
> long name elsewhere.)
>
>
>> I agree with Robby that *SLs probably have to reject (module ...)
>> expressions EXCEPT that I don't see how they can get hold of the
>> information that the programmer wrote down (other than guessing from
>> the second position in the module expression but that sounds bad).
>
> I think that it's fine for drr to spit an appropriate error (maybe
> even with a shortcut "click ok to switch to #lang" button) if the
> definitions text starts with a "#lang".  It's only stealing the
> ability for the non-#lang languages to use "#lang" for something else,
> but none of them are doing it now, and since it's something that
> should eventually disappear there shouldn't be any new ones (or worse,
> new ones that use it).
>
>
> Also, the thing that sticks out to me (still) is the poor-looking UI.
> It's using a radio button selection for something that it isn't
> intended for (UI-ly speaking).  I think that this is the main thing
> that leads to several smaller problems --
>
> * the awkward use of "ctl-?" to switch,
>
> * the confusing interaction if you're not a mouse user,
>
> * the fact that the blurb line appears at the bottom (confusigly close
>   to the "..." of the "other" languages),
>
> * the weird interaction around the "..." (I obviously tried to click
>   it)
>
> * The fact that it's still steals a lot of screen space for something
>   that most people shouldn't need (and DeinProgramm is making it take
>   even more space?).
>
> But I think that the organization is a good direction for something
> that works nicely -- so how about this:
>
> * Revert all the way back to the plain hierarchical dialog that was
>   used before the radio button thing (= go back to a simple UI)
>
> * Slap the current hierarchy on that, so that "The Racket Language" is
>   first as it is now (and part of the hierarchy, top item), that
>   preserves the current layout that encourages it.
>
> * To deal with the teaching languages, have them expanded only if the
>   current language is the no-language thing (though I still think that
>   that language is confusing more people than helping them).
>
> --
>           ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
>                     http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!