What will the Clicker Look like ?
As you can guess it by its name, Clicker is intended to be a graphical
operating system. This doesn't mean you'll never use your keyboard anymore, but
a special attention will be paid to the GUI and related stuffs.
Will it have windows ?
Hmm... Yes and no. The Clicker way doing thing is "giving each application a
desktop". But, well, what do we call an application ?... I'll tell it to you
in a minute.
An application is "a group of programs working together for the same user goal".
Which means that, if you're typing a text and browsing some pictures to be embedded in your text, both the textprocessor and the picture browser are ONE application
and will get THE SAME desktop.
This might seems to be a weird idea, but it'll be rather great when you are fine
with it.
That is:
you say "i'm gonna do something new called textprocessing"
Clicker creates a new clean desktop
you start the programs you'll use and give them parts of the desktop
you validate your "application"
Clicker registers your choices for future use.
You also might have said:
"i'm gonna textprocessing"
Clicker finds back progs & display configuration you prefer for "textprocessing"
it starts them
Clicker Tools
That was for the "no windows" part (which means, no "floating" applications)
But sometimes, windows are NECESSARY, for tools like notepads, calculators, pickers, viewers, and so on...
Those "tiny" programs use a special invocation mode that allows them to be ALWAYS
called, but NEVER remembered in an application. Those tools may also move from a
desktop to another, be hidden or recalled, and so on...
Dockers and Layout-managers
These are some "gadget" put on the desktop to merge programs displays (called
LAYERS in Clicker lingo) into one single display. Those gadget allows resizing
of layers or docking (i.e. giving many layers the same screen-emplacement and
pick the right one by some thumbnails or menus.
Guidl
Guidl (General User Interface Description Langage) is a running project to allow
description of graphical interfaces aspect and behaviour. This might be useful to
"write" some menubars for an APPLICATION, which would send signals to the programs
of the application (i.e. you got ONE save button which send SAVE signal to the
focused layer, or to all layers simultaneously :-)
guidl project is currently developped at test-level for a GTK+ display, but should
work fine with any other interface, with an interpretor.
