[ghemical-devel] roadmap for v1.00 and new features

[Tommi Hassinen]

Hello!

Ok, perhaps it's time to draw a rough roadmap for v1.00; what would it be
like and when it could be ready. Your comments and/or ideas are welcome,
of course!  :)

Currently we are going at v0.82/0.83, and it has the following
shortcomings:

	1) it is still not a 100% graphical program; still uses
		console window for output and even for input.

	2) it still runs on the "old" GNOME v1 platform.

So, I think that this situation quite naturally leads to a following
"roadmap":

	v0.90 : this would be the first version that is ported to the
		GNOME 2 platform (during 2002).

	v1.00 : this would be the "ready" program, everything would work
		through the GUI, and console would not be needed anymore
		(during 2003 probably).

To fix the console problems after v0.90 I have planned something like the
following: We already have the "project view" that looks ugly and is not
yet used much. But it's been told that the GNOME 2 platform has much more
advanced tree/list widgets and therefore it seems to be a good idea to
improve the "project view" soon.

Some time ago I also saw a webpage of a graphical CVS program front end,
where the console and the GUI were nicely combined (I don't remember the
program's name anymore). In the program a text widget was used as a
console output window, and a text input widget was used as a console input
window. Perhaps we could use something similar.

The "project view" looks at the moment like this:

	+-----------+--------------+
	|           |              |
	|  tree-    |   list-      |
	|   view    |    view      |
	|           |              |
	|           |              |
	|           |              |
	|           |              |
	|           |              |
	|           |              |
	|           |              |
	+-----------+--------------+

After the console functionality is added, it would be like:

	+-----------+--------------+
	|           |              |
	|  tree-    |   list-      |
	|   view    |    view      |
	|           |              |
	+-----------+--------------+
	|                          |
	|  output-window           |
	|                          |
	+--------------------------+
	|  input-window            |
	+--------------------------+

The "console" would not be exactly similar as now, but it seems that
something like that is needed in future also. It seems that some simple
commands typed to the input window could replace some of the more
complicated graphical interfaces (for example a command "add a disulphide
bridge between cys 15 of chain 1 and cys 45 of chain 2" as a text-based
command would be as simple as a dialog-box based system).

For new features then, at the bioinformatics.org forum there was a long
thread of "wishlist" type new features, and I found the list quite useful.
In the following days/weeks I try to write it as a table with following
fields:

	- priority (1-5)
	- the idea described
	- who's working on this, if any
	- something else?

The idea is that the list could be sorted by "priority" anytime and
therefore one could see from the table what is likely to happen soon.

	Tommi