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000055_fdc@columbia.edu_Sat Apr 27 11:31:15 EDT 2002.msg
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Article: 13346 of comp.protocols.kermit.misc
Path: newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu!news.columbia.edu!news-not-for-mail
From: fdc@columbia.edu (Frank da Cruz)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.kermit.misc
Subject: Re: suggestion for future gui
Date: 27 Apr 2002 11:24:29 -0400
Organization: Columbia University
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In article <upu0le62e.fsf@att.net>,
Thomas A. Horsley <tom.horsley@att.net> wrote:
: One of the things I find difficult about kermit is that it can do so much,
: it is hard to dig through all the docs to find the settings and commands
: you are looking for (hard to avoid, I know :-).
:
We try to make it easy, but that can be hard :-) Kermit users fall into
several classes -- at one extreme, those who use it only for the occasional
file transfer (and with modern Kermit programs, you need to know virtually
nothing for this); at the other, those who write complicated procedures in
Kermit language. At that extreme, books make sense, just as they do for
any other programming language. Still, what other programming language
lets you type "?" at any point in a statement to get a menu of what's
allowed in the current position?
But you're talking about something else... For example, people who use
it mainly (or exclusively) for terminal emulation, in which settings must
usually be dealt with -- which kind of terminal to emulate, what does the
backspace key send, is the connection 7 or 8 bits, what screen dimensions,
what character set, etc.
: I've seen a gui interface technique that seems to be used more and more by
: folks with lots of different settings to keep track of, and I thought I'd
: recommend it for consideration as a way for kermit to go (eventually).
:
: The interface uses a "tree" control on the left side with a heirarchal
: organization of all the settings (like a table of contents). You can
: expand and collapse entries to see or hide detail, and click on entries
: to bring up the screen (on the right side) for controlling that setting.
:
Right, this is pretty standard these days in Windows applications that have
lots of settings, as well as in file/directory browsers, etc.
Just so we're clear -- we do not intend to change the entire Kermit user
interface into a GUI. That would be silly, and it would grow the program
to beyond all reasonable bounds of decency. Besides, the Dialer already
lets you at almost every conceivable setting in a graphical manner.
As noted on the website, the first GUI release is just a transplantation of
K95.EXE-as-you-know-and-love-it into a GUI window, with a few GUI controls
added, like:
. A dialog for setting up and making serial-port, modem, and network
connections (both regular and secure).
. Visible indicators and dropdown menus for terminal emulation, font,
font size, and maybe character set.
. Scroll bars for scrolling back and forth in the Command and Terminal
windows.
. Stretch/Squeeze doohickeys to change the window or font size.
. A minimal menu bar.
. A toolbar with buttons to perform common actions or parameter toggles.
. A status bar.
. Maybe GUI-format popups and alerts.
. A way to specify the startup position, font, font size, and color
pallette.
. A GUI settings page in the Dialer
whatever we can do between now and June. What we do after that, as it says
on the website, depends on what people want -- features or user interface.
For example, would people rather have us work on (say) Tektronix graphics
and/or IBM 3270 terminal emulation or add GUI dialogs to access the same
features that are already there?
: By the way, thanks for the latest and greatest kermit 95. I just
: discovered I can update my web page via SSL/TLS secure ftp, so it is
: handy to have that supported in k95!.
:
Spread the word! And if you want to, write up how you did it as a case
study that we can post on website. We think this is a fairly useful new
feature, and would like to have some testimony from neutral third parties.
That goes for everybody who's using the new K95 or C-Kermit for something
new or interesting.
: I've been setting up my XP boot partition, and reinstalled k95 from my
: original 1.1 floppies (still have the floppies and the label with the
: registration code :-), and then upgraded (in three stages) to 1.1.21,
: and it all seems to work fine under XP.
:
Hey, that makes you a charter member! I wonder how many other products
let you patch your way up through 20 new releases :-)
- Frank