GUIs Get a Makeover

jcatcw writes "From Xerox PARC to Apple to Microsoft, the GUI has been evolving over the years, and the increased complexity of current systems means it will continue to change. For example, Microsoft is switching from dropdown menus to contextual ribbons. Mobile computing creates new demands for efficient presentation while the desktop GUI doesn't scale to larger screens. Dual-mode user interfaces may show up first on PDA phones but then migrate to laptops and desktops. Which of today's innovations will become tomorrow's gaffs?"

Comments

Re:JavaScript -vs- Lua

[SimHacker]

Yes, Auctioneer is very pretty code, and it does a lot of sophisticated stuff, too! Every time I log into WOW, I let auctioneer scan all the auctions and update its tables of market price statistics, and once it's done (about 7 minutes of downloading), it presents a list of the most profitable auctions that are expiring soon, and the expected profits. I've snatched up strange items like "Elemental Fire", and turned them around for huge profit. Every object you point at can pop up stats about its expected auction price. Some people use Auctioneer regularly (and game the auction house) to make real money (selling WOW gold for real cash).

The "cosmos" ui and "thottbot" service is an even more elaborate set of WOW extensions, all scripted in Lua. It gathers statistics on EVERYTHING you see in the game, and uploads the data to the central server, which hosts discussion boards for every location, object, non player character, quest and magic spell in the game. It's like a real time screen scraper that spys on WOW's data stream, which it can do efficiently because so much of the game is exposed to Lua, and all events are reported to the scripting language!

-Don

Re:I dont agree

[klokop]

Congratiolations! On having *the* ugliest application selling website known to man. Brrr.