User Interface Design - Whitebox GAT

January 7, 2020 

on the topic "understanding complex programs": A best-of-breed implementation is Whitebox Geospatial Analysis Tools . In Whitebox GAT the activities of: doing, understanding (help), editing the doing, and editing the help are presented in a singular inferface, 1 click away from each other. I think Leo has the internal structure to do something similar.

"An important characteristic of Whitebox GAT is the unique open-access development philosophy ... [open source software] allow users the opportunity to download the source code and inspect the software’s internal workings. However, traditional OSS often does not lend itself to end-user source code inspection. Open-access software, by comparison, is designed from the project’s inception in a way that reduces the barriers that typically discourage end-users from examining the algorithm and implementation details associated with specific software artifacts." 

"Whitebox GAT attempts to address some of the barriers to knowledge transfer by allowing users to view the source code associated with each tool directly from the tool’s dialog simply by pressing the View Code button" 

Back to topic … visualizing nodes and relationships. I started out not liking Leo's everything must trace back to a single root node paradigm. After working with tools that allow relationships every which way I've come round to appreciating the freedom the tree limitation provides. It's easy for my mind to get lost in spaghetti when there is no one true path.

That said I often do wish for an expanded view of the outline panel where the branches could be stretched and moved around. Freemind was pretty good for this kind of activity, very keyboard friendly too. I had hopes someone would build a Leo-FreeMind bridge but FreeMind stalled out years ago. LeoVue is now sort of scratching this better-visualization itch I have, though I haven't been able to steal time to seriously play with it.

From < https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/leo-editor/9EFsIhPD5ho >