Primordial Ooze

Seductive Longorn: Part Deux

As a followup to my original “Seductive Longhorn” blog, I wanted to point out some new relevant information. I also explore some ideas on how Windows Forms could solve some of my “Wit h Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” concerns with Longhorn.

In my original entry, I admitted my fear that all of the sexy stuff in Longhorn will wreak havok on the user experience. With all of that power and expressiveness, perhaps every Longhorn application will look and act differently from the next.

It just so happens that I’m not the only one to be thinking of this (thank God, because if I were the world would be in trouble). Joe Beda points us to some Aero User Experience Guidelines: Sampler for PDC 2003.

The last section called “Application Archetypes” was most relevant to my rantings, but mostly useless. They present different application  types:

• Document Editor Applications
• Database Applications
• E-Commerce Applications
• Information/Reference Applications
• Entertainment Applications (A picture of Halo for the PC)
• and Utility Applications

All of these application types were merely screenshots of existing applications. They all seemed to be running under Longhorn, given the way controls looked, but few if any were Longhorn-specific applications. So, there was little guidance in how to contruct a form or a dialog in such a way that you can make your form or dialog look cool, but which wouldn’t require a massive investment in time to understand how to manipulate.

Perhaps Windows Forms is the answer. A Windows Form application has familiar structure. You start with a form, you slap controls on that form, and you program the form from there.

I suppose some future version of Visual Studio (Orcas?) could allow the user to write standard Windows Forms application, but suddenly present a family of properties and options enabled by the power of Avalon. For instance, when working with a Windows Form and controls, perhaps you are presented with these additional Longhorn-specific options:

• When the form is dismissed, would you like it to explode into butterflies and fly away?
• When a combo drops down, would you like the selection list to be fade in and remain semi-transparent?
• Would you like me to auto-generate a algorithmic texture for your form and etch your controls on this canvas? Would you like marble, quicksilver, or stone floor?
• When you expand your options dialog to show advanced options, would you like the the advanced options controls to be caught off guard, scream at being suddenly exposed, and quickly fall into their proper places?

You get the picture.