[Pipet Devel] overflow<->loci translation and 3 basic gui objects

[J.W. Bizzaro]

It's an understatement to say that VSH is a complex system.  But from the
user's point of view, it should be simple.  So, my motto for the development
of the VSH GUI is K.I.S.: Keep It Simple!

That said, I want define 3 basic objects for the GUI.  I started out with 4
under Loci:

  (1) Workspace
  (2) Locus (node)
  (3) Connector
  (4) Windowlet

But thinking about this more recently, I believe (1) and (4) are the same. 
Afterall, workspaces are always in windowlets (windows) and windows always
contain workspaces.

So, how about this.  The 3 basic GUI objects:

  (1) Window
  (2) Locus (node)
  (3) Connector

(Note: a 'network' is a collection of nodes and probably shouldn't be
considered a separate object by the GUI.)

This way we have wonderful nesting and recursion: Windows contain nodes, nodes
contain connectors and windows, windows contain nodes, etc., etc.

Okay, now this brings me to how objects are named in both Overflow and Loci. 
As we have seen, both applications are remarkably similar, varying (so it
seems) mostly by how things are named.  Here is a quick translation between
the two:

  Overflow             Loci
  --------             --------
  Document             Windowlet/workspace
  Network/subnet       Workflow diagram
  Node                 Locus
  Link                 Connector

We need to standardize on these names.  I can settle with using Overflow's
terminology in every case except for 'document'.  Since VSH will be dealing
with large text files often called 'documents', I think that name is
confusing.  So, I propose we (including Overflow) change this to something
else.

Since the Loci equivalent to 'document' is 'windowlet' (and 'workspace'), and
since I mention above those two can be considered the same object, I propose
'document' be changed to 'window'.

Also, I'm not sure whether I like 'link' or 'connector' better.  What do you
guys like?  We could also consider 'line' and 'branch'.

So, maybe VSH could use the following (basic and collective) object names:

  Overflow             Loci                   VSH
  --------             --------               ---------
  Document             Windowlet/workspace    Window
  Network/subnet       Workflow diagram       Network
  Node                 Locus                  Node
  Link                 Connector              Link (or connector)

Cheers.
Jeff
-- 
                      +----------------------------------+
                      |           J.W. Bizzaro           |
                      |                                  |
                      | http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff/ |
                      |                                  |
                      |        BIOINFORMATICS.ORG        |
                      |           The Open Lab           |
                      |                                  |
                      |    http://bioinformatics.org/    |
                      +----------------------------------+