Sam’s response to Frode’s “Liquid | Space (thoughts for spec)”

Re:  Liquid | Space (thoughts for spec)

Frode, et al –
Great contribution to the discussion!!
Here are some (possibly cryptic) followup thoughts for your consideration:
Regards – Sam

Criteria:

• Multiple Layouts – created by author
• Multiple layouts – selected / controlled by user
• Thinking about (all multiples)
  • relationships (peer-level associations), as well as
  • drilling into detail (drilling down), as well as
  • understanding context (drilling up)

Visual Design

• For diagrams, it is useful to use visual indicators (colors, line style, line width, icons, size, etc) to bring out intended message or meme to be conveyed in that presentation instance (message)
• Diagram operations can be a separate discussion, as it can be quite an extensive set of actions / use cases
• Any VISUAL DESIGN issue is a PRESENTATION ISSUE.
  • in AUTHOR mode, PRESENTATION is for the AUTHOR, and assists in the creation / authoring / editing / reorganizing / etc. of the object
  • in READING / VIEWING / NAVIGATING modes, PRESENTATION is for the READER / / and provides ways that ENHANCE the reader’s comprehension of the material

Interactions

• on keyboards, keyboard shortcuts are faster than mouse operations, and ought be available, at least until keyboards are obsoleted
• Rather than having multiple actions create different TYPES of an object class, a SINGLE action ought create an object instance, with easy EDIT-PROPERTIES that allow tweaking it or changing its type, attributes, etc.
• HIGHLIGHT NODE – the idea of FOCUS is introduced here – very important. FOCUS can be invoked by click (mouse enabled), keyboard shortcut, glare (eye-sensitive devices)
• FIELDS – ought be:
  • STANDARD / DEFAULT – system-supplied, always available
  • CUSTOM – user-defined
• VISUAL – user / reader CAN choose this, as well as experiencing the AUTHOR’s specified visual behavior
• CONNECTIONS –
  • key discussion is CATEGORY TAXONOMY vs TAGS
  • The LAZY way is tags
    • most likely to be used / adopted
  • The intellectually cleaner / elegant way is CATEGORY TAXONOMY
    • less likely to be used / adopted
• AUTHOR-INTEGRATION
  • adding by drag/drop -> leaves a TODO item to review HOW to integrated it into the FOCUS DOCUMENT

PS. This is incorrectly indented; the email is better at formatting this response . If I can figure out how to correct the formatting, I will edit this to match the email just delivered.