Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!decvax!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!ack
From: ack@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Andy J. Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: BBS User Interface Ideas Wanted
Summary: Need ideas on a user interface
Keywords: user interface bbs
Message-ID: <8465@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 16 May 88 18:53:32 GMT
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: ack@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Andy J. Williams)
Organization: Kiewit Computation Center, Dartmouth College
Lines: 37

*** A little long, advice NEEDED! ***

I am writing a rather large BBS package for use on our Appletalk Network
here at Dartmouth College and I would like a little advice.  The program
will be a Macintosh front end to a VPL1 Server running on a mainframe here.
The Server will contain

     All the netnews groups we receive (circa 200-300 last count)
     All the newsgroups which will be read locally
     and maybe a Finger User option and a conference system.

The big problem has been designing a user interface which presents, say, 300
newsgroups to the user in a very simple form that even a complete neophyte
can understand and know what to do (Intuitive programming)  Note that I
intend to follow the Mac Interface guidelines very closely.

Some of the ideas have been basically: Present something akin to SFGetFile
which allows a heirarchical selecting of the news.  (Treating comp and sys
and mac as successive layers in a heirarchical tree).  I object to this as
it is rather dry and can be imposing to a new user.  Other ideas has been a
fairly involved selection scheme which, once you have decided which groups
you want and dont want, allows you to save macros which you click on to get
the groups you want.

The questions I have been asking are: What would be the easiest to use?
What would be the most intuitive?  What would present the most information
in the simplest way?  etc.  Remember, we are talking about 300 + groups.

Any advive, snatches of code, or anything is welcomed and very encouraged!

-Andy J. Williams


Andy J. Williams '90     |Ack Systems: ack@eleazar.dartmouth.edu|  _   /|
Software Development     +--------------------------------------+  \`o_O' ACK!
Kiewit Computation Center|Hello. My $NAME is ~inigo_montoya.    |    ( )  /
Dartmouth College        |You killed my process.  Prepare to vi.|     U