[LogoForum] Reading logo input from dialog boxes [was Re: KTurtle--LOGO for Linux-KDELogo] : logo

The message below is being cross-posted from LogoForum.


> I could never get behind MSWLogo strongly partly
> because it's limited to one platform, and partly because of its
> misfeature of popping up a dialog window whenever you try to
> READLIST.

Amen, brother!

This is getting somewhat off-topic, but would anyone be upset if
MSWLogo read multi-line input from the commander window instead of
from OK/Cancel dialogs? Does anyone like that MSWLogo pops up a
series of one-line dialog boxes when you type "TO FOO"? Has anyone
noticed if young learners intuitively understand the dialog boxes
better or worse than a changing input prompt?

I don't want to mess with MSWLogo's UI too much (because I really do
like it, for the most part), but I personally find those dialog boxes
disorienting, as it requires that I shift my attention from where I'm
looking to somewhere else, and then back again when I'm done.
However, I do like the commander's separate input and history boxes.
I don't know the best way to preserve the commander's look-and-feel
and still visually distinguish when Logo expects normal input from
when it expects "special" input without using dialog boxes. One
simple idea is to shorten the edit box a bit and put a label to the
left of it. The label would change depending on the type of input
Logo expects, just like in UCBLogo.

If anyone has thoughts on this, I'd like to hear them.


Best Regards,

David Costanzo





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"david_costanzo" <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in message
news:CE8D173C-615F-11DA-AE46->
> This is getting somewhat off-topic, but would anyone be upset if
> MSWLogo read multi-line input from the commander window instead of
> from OK/Cancel dialogs? Does anyone like that MSWLogo pops up a
> series of one-line dialog boxes when you type "TO FOO"?

No. It's horrible - but it does have one value. It's a very quick incentive
to get to know how to use the editor.

M.


--
From Sunny South Canterbury

"david_costanzo" <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> writes:
>However, I do like the commander's separate input and history boxes.

Why? It decontextualizes the input. Think about this sort of procedure:

to getinfo
type "|Name: |
make "name readlist
type "|Address: |
make "address readlist
; etc
end

let alone one that uses SETCURSOR to allow tabbing between fields on a
pre-layed-out form!

I've always thought that the separate input line was just making the best of
the lack of a prompt character, which in turn comes from the difficulty of
distinguishing which characters in the window were typed by the user and which
by the program. (Object Logo dealt with this by putting input and output in
different fonts, which could then be distinguished by the program later.)