Designer's view of Eclipse

Slide 1: The Designer’s view of Eclipse http://www.flickr.com/photos/twose/119942687/

Slide 2: While modern UI technologies like: AJAX, Flex, Silverlight, and Java FX have the promise of an exciting and limitless canvas - traditional applications built with Eclipse have rarely moved away from its roots as a development IDE.

Slide 3: IDE? In computing, an integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of a source code editor, a compiler and/or interpreter, build automation tools, and (usually) a debugger. Sometimes a version control system and various tools are integrated to simplify the construction of a GUI. Many modern IDEs also have a class browser, an object inspector, and a class hierarchy diagram, for use with object oriented software development. IDEs are designed to maximize programmer productivity by providing tightly-knit components with similar user interfaces, thus minimizing the amount of mode switching the programmer must do comparing to loose, discrete collections of disparate development programs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_development_environment

Slide 4: While the IDE “look and feel” may work great with developers, scientists, or wall street traders... Problems arise when using that same structure to create an easy-to-use application for task based workers.

Slide 5: Prerequisite... Before moving forward you should look over some of the galleries on the Eclipse website, this will give you a quick overview of the large assortment of applications developed on on Eclipse RCP platform. Eclipse Trader http://eclipsetrader.sourceforge.net/ http://www.eclipse.org/community/rcpcp.php Eclipse Foundation, Inc. http://www.eclipse.org/community/rcpos.php

Slide 6: The following pages list “problems” a Designer may have with the Eclipse platform. But... While I feel that the UI layer for Eclipse leaves a lot to be desired, I know as an integration platform (the “glue” between applications), Eclipse is very powerful. It excels at quickly patching together components and allowing those components to “talk” with each other. So again, while not the most exciting platform from a UI perspective, Eclipse does help solve a number of different business problems.

Slide 7: Designer problem number one... Eclipse is lacking in visual style.

Slide 12: I don’t think any of these would be described as “sexy”, “cool”, or “visually appealing”. Is that ok?

Slide 13: Designer problem number two... Eclipse is lacking in structure.

Slide 15: Where do I start? Which windows are connected with each other?

Slide 16: Structure? Lack of structure does not equal customization. While customization is important for many audiences, a lack of structure harms the usability of a product. Removing the visual cues that show which windows are grouped together, where a task’s focus is, or what steps someone should take makes it difficult to visualize what information goes together, and how the different areas interact with each other. http://www.flickr.com/photos/b-tal/116220689/

Slide 17: When creating an application, Designers start with the structure... (This is called information architecture) http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotconscience/2217669755/

Slide 18: Designer problem number Three... Eclipse is lacking in usability.

Slide 23: While a lot of the buttons, widgets, and icons may be standard in an IDE environment (one of the benefits of an IDE), they are not standard for many non-IDE users.

Slide 24: People still have a hard time using tabs in web browsers... http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenscott/315087632/

Slide 25: UI Designer problem number Four... Eclipse is lacking in focus.

Slide 26: Most eclipse based applications have information overload! http://www.flickr.com/photos/84265607@N00/1898331455/

Slide 30: 56 Buttons 6 "file menu" 6 windows 3 search boxes 10 tabs

Slide 31: Which windows needs your attention?

Slide 32: Are they doing anything to fix these problems?

Slide 33: Eclipsecon 2005: Changing the look and feel of Eclipse applications http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/*checkout*/org.eclipse.ui.examples.presentation/eclipsecon2005-presentationsAPI.ppt? rev=1.1&content-type=application/powerpoint

Slide 34: Eclipsecon 2008: Plastic Surgery For Eclipse: Custom SWT Widgets, RCP Customization, And More http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/?page=sub/&id=8 Advanced User Interface Programming Using the Rich Client Platform (part 2) http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/?page=sub/&id=449 Create Web 2.0 style Rich Clients with Eclipse http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/?page=sub/&id=84 Pimp My Editor http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/?page=sub/&id=450 Building on Eclipse in interesting ways while still respecting its look and feel http://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/?page=sub/&id=378 Yes, they are talking about it.

Slide 35: So we have... Eclipse is lacking in visual style. structure. Usability. focus. So, has anyone made an app that “looks good, works well”?

Slide 36: Let’s talk about IBM’s Lotus Notes “Hannover”

Slide 38: Visual Style? Check! Looks great!

Slide 39: Structure? Check!

Slide 40: Usability? Check!

Slide 41: Focus? Check!

Slide 42: ...According to Erica Rugullies, senior analyst with Forrester Research, Inc., "Looking for information based on activity, rather than by type of information, i.e., e-mail, file or person's contact record, represents a significant departure from the way it's been done in the past, and it's a way for IBM to differentiate Lotus Notes from the competition." Notes has often been criticized for its somewhat staid user interface. According to IBM's Bisconti, in creating Hannover, IBM paid attention "to not just the user interface, but the user experience." "Through improvements such as contextual collaboration and support for composite apps, we've gone above and beyond simple UI enhancement," he said... http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid4_gci1098021,00.html

Slide 43: 13 11 Hannover was shown 12 the media and at conferences. Once to officially launched as Lotus Notes 8, it retained much of the Hannover look and feel - but lost some of the style, structure, usability, and focus.

Slide 44: Learn more about Lotus Notes 8 http://www.google.com/search?q=lotus+notes+8 www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmgRnk5VSO0 ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/lotus/lotusweb/product/domino/ND8_Reviewers_Guide.pdf

Slide 45: Final thoughts?

Slide 46: Eclipse Does not score well... styling (ability to ‘skin’ existing UI elements) precise graphical control (font anti-aliasing, alpha transparency, shadows, rounded corners) UI Aesthetic creation of ‘new’ widgets Considerations (slider, tabbed breadcrumb navigation) novel interaction patterns (radial menu, 3-D seatmap) data visualization (bar graphs, charts, mapping) 3-D effects (perspective pages, rotating objects) http://www.poetpainter.com

Slide 47: ague over the I had an intere sting conversation with a colle form and all weekend. The topic was the new Notes 8 RCP plat Domino ecosystem. the goodness that it will bring to the Lotus g' work I am As an RIA proponen t, I pointed out the 'pioneerin the Domino platform doing with Ad obe Flex in combination with y 'skunkworks'. and even gave him a peek at what's lurking in m . There is no RCP His jaw droppe d, and the light bulb went ON lous future of vs. RIA confrontatio n looming. It will be a marve mmodated and RCP & RIA, w here all use cases can be acco e experience. users w ill gain from the richness of th Eclipse can handle RCP + RIA well!

Slide 48: Brower- Player-based Client-based based Thin Flash, Flex, AIR, Windows, Rich HTML AJAX Client Siverlight JavaFX Mac Client XUL XUL (+XULRunner) Java/Swing or SWT XForms OpenLazlo Reduced maintenance Combined benefits Intuitive UI Location independence of thin and rich clients Immediate response Eclipse is not as exciting as other UI technologies from a designer’s view...

Slide 49: Summary: Again, while not the most robust UI technology, Eclipse and other RCPs offer superb integration points for multiple components. Within the different “Views” any technology can be used: Flex, HTML/AJAX, Silverlight, etc... this may overcome some limitations. But, the standard Eclipse UI is lacking, and since Eclipse seems to mostly to be used for science, enterprise, and developer type applications - finding Eclipse UI specialists who can fix design and usability problems may be difficult.