ReactOS UI Team - Concept, Plan, and: help wanted

[Aleksey Bragin]

Hi, our UI Team Coordinator - mf - asked me to sent this email on his
behalf, because unfortunately mails from his address doesn't reach
any mailing-list.
Here is the original message:
From: mf <mf(a)mufunyo.net>
Date: October 6, 2005 1:20:56 AM GMT+04:00
Subject: ReactOS UI Team - Concept, Plan, and: help wanted
Greetings ReactOS developers and interested parties!
For the unintroduced, I am your humble UI coordinator. In addition, I
also made some graphics for the project.
-Concept-
I am here to remind you of a post that was made in the ReactOS user
forum, written by crappish (Mikko Tikkanen). In it the author wrote
of the need of a consistent user interface, the need of people that
actually have knowledge of such things, and how these people would
have to be in charge of enforcing such an interface. They should be
familiar with Windows, know how to make things accessible and newbie-
friendly, and have enough creativity to improve on existing concepts.
In addition to that, there should be someone who represents this team
and can interface it with the rest of the project, and make sure
everything is the way everyone wants it to be. Now, this
representative has been chosen. But there is no team to back him up!
-Recruiting-
So getting down to business. The UI team is recruiting two kinds of
people.
Primarily: Programmers who have sufficient knowledge to hack other
people's code, even if said code is rooted deeply in system
libraries. Skill in writing user interfaces and piecing together
dialog resources. No advanced skills beyond that required. This is
most important, since developers in this category can get straight to
business and get started on improving ReactOS.
Secondarily: Interface concept designers who have advanced knowledge
of human interfacing, easy access, logical positioning, and the
creativity to improve and expand on existing ideas. This is a
secondary category because a) right now there is little to do in this
respect, b) there are already two (counting Mikko?) of these people
in ReactOS, and c) for every 1 concept designer, there can be up to
10 implementing developers.
Even more appreciated, would be someone who fits both gloves and can
write code AND design interfaces. Sadly, experience proves that these
two traits don't usually come together in one person.
And! Just as important, though not actively recruited, I welcome icon
designers, graphic designers, font designers (that includes you,
wierd_w!), sound effect samplers, and programmers willing to
implement missing UI features (think of things such as extended
cursor/icon support, alpha blitting, runtime freetype configuration,
recycle bin functionality, control panel, autorun support, etc), on
individual application (mail me at mf(a)mufunyo.net).
-Plan-
The plan(tm) to kickstart the UI team is as follows:
Our first goal will be to make the surface experience of ReactOS
familiar. Surface in this context means the things a user will see
during and after bootup. This mainly involves modifying explorer; to
display a consistent and familiar start menu, and to show a friendly
explorer when My Computer or the Explore link is opened. This means
making all the surface icons consistent (my task), modifying
explorer's interface (the 'programmer' category), and figuring out
the best layout for the start menu (the 'designer' category).
There is no plan past this first task, because I cannot predict how
small or big the team is going to be, what feedback we are going to
get, and how fast things will move.
And that's it for my first big announcement. I hope this will get
some discussion going, and some balls rolling. I would also like to
take this  opportunity to request a mailing list for the UI team,
this should have been set up right after the coordinator vote was
over, but it wasn't-- so to whoever's in charge of that, I count on
you. Thanks.
Please reply to this mail only on the general list or to me in person
(if you're not on the list and only get digests), it is only
crossposted in ros-dev to get a wider range of attention.
Thanks for reading,
mf.

[Mikko Tikkanen]

Aye. I'm still in. Just have been a tad busy. I've been watching my
mail but that's about it but since I started my school few weeks ago I
have more time on my hands. At least when project deadlines aren't
pushing too close.
The school also has new advantages; since I'm studying UI/usability
design I could do some actual user testing, with live subjects. I
could also get artists involved as the schools also has art teaching.
-mikko
2005/10/6, Aleksey Bragin <aleksey(a)studiocerebral.com>om>:
>   -Concept-
>  I am here to remind you of a post that was made in the ReactOS user forum,
>  written by crappish (Mikko Tikkanen). In it the author wrote of the need of
>  a consistent user interface, the need of people that actually have knowledge
>  of such things, and how these people would have to be in charge of enforcing
>  such an interface. They should be familiar with Windows, know how to make
>  things accessible and newbie-friendly, and have enough creativity to improve
>  on existing concepts. In addition to that, there should be someone who
>  represents this team and can interface it with the rest of the project, and
>  make sure everything is the way everyone wants it to be. Now, this
>  representative has been chosen. But there is no team to back him up!
>  -Recruiting-
>  So getting down to business. The UI team is recruiting two kinds of people.
>  Primarily: Programmers who have sufficient knowledge to hack other people's
>  code, even if said code is rooted deeply in system libraries. Skill in
>  writing user interfaces and piecing together dialog resources. No advanced
>  skills beyond that required. This is most important, since developers in
>  this category can get straight to business and get started on improving
>  ReactOS.
>  Secondarily: Interface concept designers who have advanced knowledge of
>  human interfacing, easy access, logical positioning, and the creativity to
>  improve and expand on existing ideas. This is a secondary category because
>  a) right now there is little to do in this respect, b) there are already two
>  (counting Mikko?) of these people in ReactOS, and c) for every 1 concept
>  designer, there can be up to 10 implementing developers.
>  Even more appreciated, would be someone who fits both gloves and can write
>  code AND design interfaces. Sadly, experience proves that these two traits
>  don't usually come together in one person.
>  And! Just as important, though not actively recruited, I welcome icon
>  designers, graphic designers, font designers (that includes you, wierd_w!),
>  sound effect samplers, and programmers willing to implement missing UI
>  features (think of things such as extended cursor/icon support, alpha
>  blitting, runtime freetype configuration, recycle bin functionality, control
>  panel, autorun support, etc), on individual application (mail me at
>  mf(a)mufunyo.net).
>  -Plan-
>  The plan(tm) to kickstart the UI team is as follows:
>  Our first goal will be to make the surface experience of ReactOS familiar.
>  Surface in this context means the things a user will see during and after
>  bootup. This mainly involves modifying explorer; to display a consistent and
>  familiar start menu, and to show a friendly explorer when My Computer or the
>  Explore link is opened. This means making all the surface icons consistent
>  (my task), modifying explorer's interface (the 'programmer' category), and
>  figuring out the best layout for the start menu (the 'designer' category).
>  There is no plan past this first task, because I cannot predict how small or
>  big the team is going to be, what feedback we are going to get, and how fast
>  things will move.
>  And that's it for my first big announcement. I hope this will get some
>  discussion going, and some balls rolling. I would also like to take this
>  opportunity to request a mailing list for the UI team, this should have been
>  set up right after the coordinator vote was over, but it wasn't-- so to
>  whoever's in charge of that, I count on you. Thanks.
>  Please reply to this mail only on the general list or to me in person (if
>  you're not on the list and only get digests), it is only crossposted in
>  ros-dev to get a wider range of attention.
>  Thanks for reading,
>  mf.

[Max Well]

Hi, my name is David Hinz,
I'm not completely new to ReactOS, but I subscribed the mailinglists
only 2 weeks ago.
I'm interested in getting a UI designer.
The thing is, I know a lot of operatingsystems and their UIs and I've
got a lot of own ideas, but I can't programm.
Currently, I'm learning C and C++ in school, so I thing It would be a
good practise for me to use my new knowledge for ReactOS.
As you said, there are already two UI designer, so I would like to
redesign the setup.
It seems to be already complete, but it's 'only' textmode.
So, what I'd like to do, is create a graphic setup, maybe using the
livecd, the old textmode setup and some other things of reactos and
create a new graphic setup that installs ReactOS without rebooting.
I think this might be an interesting project, but if you would like me
to do something different, I would be ok with that.
Greets,
David Hinz aka fRy2oo5
2005/10/6, Aleksey Bragin <aleksey(a)studiocerebral.com>om>:
>   Hi, our UI Team Coordinator - mf - asked me to sent
> this email on his
>  behalf, because unfortunately mails from his address doesn't reach any
>  mailing-list.
>  Here is the original message:
>  From: mf <mf(a)mufunyo.net>
>  Date: October 6, 2005 1:20:56 AM GMT+04:00
>  Subject: ReactOS UI Team - Concept, Plan, and: help wanted
>  Greetings ReactOS developers and interested parties!
>  For the unintroduced, I am your humble UI coordinator. In addition, I also
>  made some graphics for the project.
>  -Concept-
>  I am here to remind you of a post that was made in the ReactOS user forum,
>  written by crappish (Mikko Tikkanen). In it the author wrote of the need of
>  a consistent user interface, the need of people that actually have knowledge
>  of such things, and how these people would have to be in charge of enforcing
>  such an interface. They should be familiar with Windows, know how to make
>  things accessible and newbie-friendly, and have enough creativity to improve
>  on existing concepts. In addition to that, there should be someone who
>  represents this team and can interface it with the rest of the project, and
>  make sure everything is the way everyone wants it to be. Now, this
>  representative has been chosen. But there is no team to back him up!
>  -Recruiting-
>  So getting down to business. The UI team is recruiting two kinds of people.
>  Primarily: Programmers who have sufficient knowledge to hack other people's
>  code, even if said code is rooted deeply in system libraries. Skill in
>  writing user interfaces and piecing together dialog resources. No advanced
>  skills beyond that required. This is most important, since developers in
>  this category can get straight to business and get started on improving
>  ReactOS.
>  Secondarily: Interface concept designers who have advanced knowledge of
>  human interfacing, easy access, logical positioning, and the creativity to
>  improve and expand on existing ideas. This is a secondary category because
>  a) right now there is little to do in this respect, b) there are already two
>  (counting Mikko?) of these people in ReactOS, and c) for every 1 concept
>  designer, there can be up to 10 implementing developers.
>  Even more appreciated, would be someone who fits both gloves and can write
>  code AND design interfaces. Sadly, experience proves that these two traits
>  don't usually come together in one person.
>  And! Just as important, though not actively recruited, I welcome icon
>  designers, graphic designers, font designers (that includes you, wierd_w!),
>  sound effect samplers, and programmers willing to implement missing UI
>  features (think of things such as extended cursor/icon support, alpha
>  blitting, runtime freetype configuration, recycle bin functionality, control
>  panel, autorun support, etc), on individual application (mail me at
>  mf(a)mufunyo.net).
>  -Plan-
>  The plan(tm) to kickstart the UI team is as follows:
>  Our first goal will be to make the surface experience of ReactOS familiar.
>  Surface in this context means the things a user will see during and after
>  bootup. This mainly involves modifying explorer; to display a consistent and
>  familiar start menu, and to show a friendly explorer when My Computer or the
>  Explore link is opened. This means making all the surface icons consistent
>  (my task), modifying explorer's interface (the 'programmer' category), and
>  figuring out the best layout for the start menu (the 'designer' category).
>  There is no plan past this first task, because I cannot predict how small or
>  big the team is going to be, what feedback we are going to get, and how fast
>  things will move.
>  And that's it for my first big announcement. I hope this will get some
>  discussion going, and some balls rolling. I would also like to take this
>  opportunity to request a mailing list for the UI team, this should have been
>  set up right after the coordinator vote was over, but it wasn't-- so to
>  whoever's in charge of that, I count on you. Thanks.
>  Please reply to this mail only on the general list or to me in person (if
>  you're not on the list and only get digests), it is only crossposted in
>  ros-dev to get a wider range of attention.
>  Thanks for reading,
>  mf.
>  _______________________________________________
>  ros-general mailing list
>  ros-general(a)reactos.org
>  http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-general
>

[Richard Campbell]

I don't think i quite understand this...Are you saying we should develop
a new UI?  I don't think so. The Windows UI is standard, and several
million users KNOW this UI.  Our UI should be kept as close as possible
to windows without breaking any laws.
Aleksey Bragin wrote:
>   Hi, our UI Team Coordinator - mf - asked me to sent
> this email on his
>  behalf, because unfortunately mails from his address doesn't reach any
>  mailing-list.
>  Here is the original message:
>  *From: *mf &lt;mf(a)mufunyo.net <mailto:[e-mail]>>
>  *Date: *October 6, 2005 1:20:56 AM GMT+04:00
>  *Subject: **ReactOS UI Team - Concept, Plan, and: help wanted*
>  Greetings ReactOS developers and interested parties!
>  For the unintroduced, I am your humble UI coordinator. In addition, I
>  also made some graphics for the project.
>  -Concept-
>  I am here to remind you of a post that was made in the ReactOS user
>  forum, written by crappish (Mikko Tikkanen). In it the author wrote of
>  the need of a consistent user interface, the need of people that
>  actually have knowledge of such things, and how these people would
>  have to be in charge of enforcing such an interface. They should be
>  familiar with Windows, know how to make things accessible and
>  newbie-friendly, and have enough creativity to improve on existing
>  concepts. In addition to that, there should be someone who represents
>  this team and can interface it with the rest of the project, and make
>  sure everything is the way everyone wants it to be. Now, this
>  representative has been chosen. But there is no team to back him up!
>  -Recruiting-
>  So getting down to business. The UI team is recruiting two kinds of
>  people.
>  Primarily: Programmers who have sufficient knowledge to hack other
>  people's code, even if said code is rooted deeply in system libraries.
>  Skill in writing user interfaces and piecing together dialog
>  resources. No advanced skills beyond that required. This is most
>  important, since developers in this category can get straight to
>  business and get started on improving ReactOS.
>  Secondarily: Interface concept designers who have advanced knowledge
>  of human interfacing, easy access, logical positioning, and the
>  creativity to improve and expand on existing ideas. This is a
>  secondary category because a) right now there is little to do in this
>  respect, b) there are already two (counting Mikko?) of these people in
>  ReactOS, and c) for every 1 concept designer, there can be up to 10
>  implementing developers.
>  Even more appreciated, would be someone who fits both gloves and can
>  write code AND design interfaces. Sadly, experience proves that these
>  two traits don't usually come together in one person.
>  And! Just as important, though not actively recruited, I welcome icon
>  designers, graphic designers, font designers (that includes you,
>  wierd_w!), sound effect samplers, and programmers willing to implement
>  missing UI features (think of things such as extended cursor/icon
>  support, alpha blitting, runtime freetype configuration, recycle bin
>  functionality, control panel, autorun support, etc), on individual
>  application (mail me at mf(a)mufunyo.net <mailto:[e-mail]>).
>  -Plan-
>  The plan(tm) to kickstart the UI team is as follows:
>  Our first goal will be to make the surface experience of ReactOS
>  familiar. Surface in this context means the things a user will see
>  during and after bootup. This mainly involves modifying explorer; to
>  display a consistent and familiar start menu, and to show a friendly
>  explorer when My Computer or the Explore link is opened. This means
>  making all the surface icons consistent (my task), modifying
>  explorer's interface (the 'programmer' category), and figuring out the
>  best layout for the start menu (the 'designer' category).
>  There is no plan past this first task, because I cannot predict how
>  small or big the team is going to be, what feedback we are going to
>  get, and how fast things will move.
>  And that's it for my first big announcement. I hope this will get some
>  discussion going, and some balls rolling. I would also like to take
>  this  opportunity to request a mailing list for the UI team, this
>  should have been set up right after the coordinator vote was over, but
>  it wasn't-- so to whoever's in charge of that, I count on you. Thanks.
>  Please reply to this mail only on the general list or to me in person
>  (if you're not on the list and only get digests), it is only
>  crossposted in ros-dev to get a wider range of attention.
>  Thanks for reading,
>  mf.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> ros-general(a)reactos.org
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>