Re: Windows2000 coolness

[bob cs csoft net]

Now you know why the bare minimum for w2k is like a p3 with 256mb of ram.
:)

That feature should go into a gtk engine or maybe gtk itself. but, leave
the choice to do normal menus. last time I checked, w2k could only do
fading, and sliding but not the quick no animation method. One reason w2k
is dog slow.

On Wed, 8 Dec 1999, Derek Simkowiak wrote:

>     All,
> 	I just saw somebody using Win2K (final beta) for the first time.
> I'm assuming that (like me) most of the people here haven't wasted their
> time playing with the Win2K betas.
> 
> 	Overall, it looks like the same old crap, but there is one feature
> that is VERY cool.  It's hard to describe, and you need to see it to get
> an idea of what it looks like.  Menus "fade" into existance.
> 
> 	Imagine if menus came into existance by a short, 3-frame
> animation.  The first frame is a barely-visible, translucent box.  The
> next frame looks like E's translucent window moves.  The last frame looks
> like the menu.
> 
> 	The animation happens near-instantly, and does not delay the
> appearance/usage of the menu, so it's a very subtle effect, but I
> immediately noticed it.  It was very impressive.
> 
> 	As you scroll through the menus in a menubar (or the Start
> button), they do not fade out of existance.  They simply disappear, which
> it what menus have always done.  However, if you select an item from the
> menu, the menu (and the selected item) *does* fade out of existance.
> 
> 	Furthermore, if you select an item, that item, which is
> highlighted, fades out of existance approximately 1 frame behind the menu,
> giving your brain just enough time to get confirmation that you selected
> the correct item.  That visual confirmation is something that I've only
> seen on Macs with their 
> "blink-the-selected-item-three-times-before-disappearing" feature, which
> slowed the user down too much.
> 
> 	This feature also applies to tooltips.
> 
> 	I do not know how many "frames" Win2K actually uses in their
> animation, but it's fast enough to not slow down the user.  Also, the
> feature can be turned off. If you go under Control Panel->Display->Effects
> there is a drop-down option called "Use transition effects for menus and
> tooltips" which offers the choices "Fade Effect", "Scroll Effect", and
> "None".  Scroll Effect is the same annoying crap we saw in Win98.
> 
> 	I would LOVE to see this in Gnome.  My questions are:
> 
> 1) Where would this go?  In the Gtk+ toolkit, perhaps as part of a theme?
> In the Window Manager?  My assumption, since it is limited to menus and
> tooltips, is that it would belong in the toolkit--but in that case, how
> would you turn it "on" and "off" for all applications?
> 
> 2) How do we keep this fast?  Do we use some trick feature of the video
> card, as is the case with Win98's smooth scrolling?  Would we want to add
> extra features to the X display server?  Or would it be done with Imlib?
> 
> 	If we should move this discussion to the gtk-devel-list (or some
> other list), let me know and I'll forward this message there.  But if we
> want new users to consider Gnome a "modern" user interface, this feature
> will be a requirement.  Besides that, it looks cool as hell :).
> 
> 
> --Derek
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> To unsubscribe: mail gnome-devel-list-request@gnome.org with "unsubscribe"
> as the Subject.
>