First time look at Tonic

As I have written in my last post I want to take a look at Jin/Tonic's UI.

This is what users usually see when they first start Tonic (apart from splash screen, but this is true for Windows users only).

Pro
1. One font face, same as system font, no bold or italic font (I think it isn't necessary here).
2. No unnecessary borders in the "Choose server" dialog.
3. Only the needed information is displayed, the start is pretty simple - you just choose a server and that is it (this counts for dialog mainly read 1st cons).

Cons
1. It is misleading to show main app window with menus - try to click them, you cannot.
2. Component with scroll bar isn't a good for displaying just a two servers you can connect.
3. The buttons aren't align with a control displaying servers.
4. "Choose server" dialog title and "Choose a server to connect to" label is redundant, but it is disputable whether it's pro or con.
5. It is not attractive :).
6. "Choose sever" window is modal so it makes quiting application harder. You cannot even resize the app window.

Do not hesitate to add something to both lists.

What should I do for Tonic and what should I undone

After watching this presentation of JavaOne 2006 conference quite a while ago I got quite excited about UI design part of designing software. I had some thoughts about it when I was implementing new preferences UI (for Channels Manager for example). I have to admit that my education should have help me, but my eyes were rather closed at the right solutions. You know, sometimes one needs some little mind push or clarification. Now when I had seen the presentation mentioned above I know I was taught what Karsten was saying - omit clutter, reduce noise, KISS.

So, what should I do now? I will see Karsten's presentation again and again (it isn't enough to see it three times :)) and his Metamorphosis demo. Simultaneously I will do a little measurement of UI design principles correctness against Tonic/Jin (at the moment these are almost identical). I hope I will come to the right observation :).

Coding back to Tonic

This time I present all of you screenshot with strange chess position. Note this is examined game and you can see what kind of variant it is (be it Bughouse, Suicide or any other). It is something that Tonic's parent couldn't do when I started working with its source code.



Starting a chess game from some nonstandard chess positions (other then well known Fischer random chess and pawns-only) is a feature of Free Internet Chess Server I didn't know until I tried to investigate this bug. And while I was talking on the server with ryoshu about pawns-only variant I was told that there are some boards on fics. Well, one can even check what boards are for each category. You can do it by typing "boards" and then, for example "boards uwild". I did and... this bug occured.
So you have to restart Tonic if you want to get rid of what you see in Channels Manager window, sorry :). I haven't fixed this bug yet, but I have an idea how to do it ;). Anyway, I am happy I found some time to code back to Tonic. And I am glad I kind of remember what I changed in it already :].