[
Date Prev][
Date Next][
Thread Prev][
Thread Next][
Date Index][
Thread Index]
[
List Home]
|
Re: [udig-devel] Feedback on docs and UI
|
Tony,
Fabulous to hear you are already (already?!) extending uDig. Is that
fear I hear from the developers corner? :)
We would be interested to see the results of your work some time, and
possibly add it to the uDig community. One of the things that should be
coming online in the next few weeks is a web site we can extend to
support not just uDig but also the community of third party developers
doing extension work.
Yours,
Paul
On 19-Feb-05, at 10:43 PM, Tony Kennedy wrote:
I've been using the developers documentation for the past 7 weeks
developing a plug-in of reasonable complexity which extends the
catalogue to accept data in the form of continuous data streams rather
than stored data sets, and allows users to register continuous queries
against these data steams. The results of the queries are displayed in
part by a pseudo layer over a basemap in this case the OSGB ITN
layer the rest in extensions to the interface and found both the web
site and the documentation perfectly adequate for the purpose and for
a project with your timescales amazing.
However, I think you should keep in mind when you make design
decisions that people will be extending uDig, and in doing so will be
thinking outside of the GIS box , particularly UI decisions, for
instance we make extensive use of projects and have extended them to
make use of version control, we have many data sets which we need to
rerun, this a typical situation in the world of remote sensing, and
many others that use spatial data, uDig makes a very useful component
for displaying spatial information for these applications.
I think that you should not try too hard to save the user from
themselves. Applications that do end up being rigid and complex. The
problem is that the work process are rarely structured, and that an
application that tries to force them into an arbitrary structure is
more of a hindrance than a help.If the user wants to do something
silly (in your opinion), don't obstruct him a just politely warn him,
and get out of the way and let the user get on with things. This
approach to the UI derives from Alan Cooper, his books About Face,
and The Inmates are Running the Asylum, are a good starting point for
those interested.
Regards
Tony Kennedy
_______________________________________________
User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
http://udig.refractions.net
http://lists.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/udig-devel
