Posted by: purevirtual
on February 26, 2005 02:36 AM
I started reading the first part, and was thinking you have to figure out an interface before you standardize on one. GIMP is certainly the poster child of the need for more Open Source projects to have a reasonable user interface for reasonable people. I needed to do some transparent images, so I installed GIMP. After googling I found out how to do it. Then I wanted to modify the images, and the simplist of drawing tasks were obscure to me. I'd draw what I thought was white and it turned gray.
I don't see why a powerful tool can't cater to both novice and expert alike. This is a common problem among many open source projects. UI is difficult, configuration is difficult, etc. etc. Look at the adoption FireFox has gained with an interface that appeals to the average person.
The comment about Nvu is interesting. I'd think it would be interesting to integrate such an editor into Nvu.
The challenge for Open Source is to find people who can create reasonable interfaces and keep the interface concise and clean over the life of the project. It can easily turn into a Frankenstein like monster over time if allowed.
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Re:I was thinking the same. Only what about Nvu?
Posted by: purevirtual on February 26, 2005 02:36 AMI don't see why a powerful tool can't cater to both novice and expert alike. This is a common problem among many open source projects. UI is difficult, configuration is difficult, etc. etc. Look at the adoption FireFox has gained with an interface that appeals to the average person.
The comment about Nvu is interesting. I'd think it would be interesting to integrate such an editor into Nvu.
The challenge for Open Source is to find people who can create reasonable interfaces and keep the interface concise and clean over the life of the project. It can easily turn into a Frankenstein like monster over time if allowed.
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