The Designer’s view of Eclipse

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twose/119942687/

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.

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

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.

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.

Prerequisite...

Eclipse Foundation, Inc.

Eclipse Traderhttp://eclipsetrader.sourceforge.net/

http://www.eclipse.org/community/rcpcp.phphttp://www.eclipse.org/community/rcpos.php

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.

Designer problem number one...

Eclipse is lacking in visual style.

I don’t think any of these would be described as “sexy”, “cool”, or “visually appealing”.

Is that ok?

Designer problem number two...

Eclipse is lacking in structure.

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

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/

When creating an application, Designers start with the structure...(This is called information architecture)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotconscience/2217669755/

Designer problem number Three...

Eclipse is lacking in usability.

Eclipse Foundation, Inc.

Jayasoft - French Wine Test

• French Consulting Company uses Eclipse RCP to build custom applications.

Eclipse Foundation, Inc.

Gumtree - Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) http://gumtree.sourceforge.net/wiki

• Integrated Scientific Experiment Environment

Eclipse Foundation, Inc.

Third Brigade – Intrusion Detectionhttp://www.thirdbrigade.com/

! Management console for host intrusion detection service

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.

People still have a hard time using tabs in web browsers...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenscott/315087632/

UI Designer problem number Four...

Eclipse is lacking in focus.

Most eclipse based applications have information overload!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84265607@N00/1898331455/

56 Buttons6 "file menu"6 windows3 search boxes10 tabs

Which windows needs your attention?

Are they doing anything to fix these problems?

Eclipsecon 2005:

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

Eclipsecon 2008:Plastic Surgery For Eclipse: Custom SWT Widgets, RCP Customization, And Morehttp://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 Eclipsehttp://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/?page=sub/&id=84

Pimp My Editorhttp://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/?page=sub/&id=450

Building on Eclipse in interesting ways while still respecting its look and feelhttp://www.eclipsecon.org/2008/?page=sub/&id=378

Yes, they are talking about it.

focus.

Eclipse is lacking in visual style.structure.Usability.

So we have...

So, has anyone made an app that “looks good, works well”?

Let’s talk about IBM’s Lotus Notes “Hannover”

Visual Style? Check! Looks great!

Structure? Check!

Usability? Check!

Focus? Check!

...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

Chapter 2. Changes for the user 25

4. Mini view: Switch between views of To Dos, new calendar invites, and mails that have been flagged for follow up.

5. Search center: Access to search within and outside of Lotus Notes. See 2.2.9, “Search center” on page 35.

6. Toolbars: Contextual actions. See 2.2.3, “Toolbars” on page 29.

7. Action bar: Lotus Notes application actions. See 2.3.1, “Action bar” on page 38.

8. Display menu: Quick access to view management options. See 2.3.2, “Display menu” on page 38.

9. Mail conversations: Organize your mail file. See 2.3.5, “Conversations view” on page 40.

10.Preview pane (on the bottom): View the content of the selected document. See 2.3.3, “Horizontal/vertical preview” on page 39.

Figure 2-2 Lotus Notes client layout (with sidebar)

As shown in Figure 2-2:

11.Open list: Access to Lotus Notes applications (bookmarks), IBM productivity tools, Web browser, and WebSphere Portal applications. See 2.2.2, “Open list” on page 28.

12.Preview pane (on the right): View content of selected document. See 2.3.3, “Horizontal/vertical preview” on page 39.

11

12

13

Hannover was shown to the media and at conferences. Once 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.

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

Learn more about Lotus Notes 8

Final thoughts?

styling(ability to ‘skin’ existing UI elements)

precise graphical control(font anti-aliasing, alpha transparency, shadows, rounded corners)

creation of ‘new’ widgets(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)

UI Aesthetic

Considerations

Eclipse Does not score well...

http://www.poetpainter.com

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague over the

weekend. The topic was the new Notes 8 RCP platform and all

the goodness that it will bring to the Lotus Domino ecosystem.

As an RIA proponent, I pointed out the 'pioneering' work I am

doing with Adobe Flex in combination with the Domino platform

and even gave him a peek at what's lurking in my 'skunkworks'.

His jaw dropped, and the light bulb went ON. There is no RCP

vs. RIA confrontation looming. It will be a marvelous future of

RCP & RIA, where all use cases can be accommodated and

users will gain from the richness of the experience.

Eclipse can handle RCP + RIA well!

XUL Java/Swing or SWTXUL (+XULRunner)XForms OpenLazlo

Reduced maintenanceLocation independence

Combined benefitsof thin and rich clients

Intuitive UIImmediate response

ThinClient

RichClient

Brower-based

Player-based Client-based

HTML AJAX Flash, Flex, Siverlight

AIR,JavaFX

Windows,Mac

Eclipse is not as exciting as other UI technologies from a designer’s view...

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.