I think this feature will make Gretl a little bit confusing for an
average
user (Gretl’s approach focuses on ease of use). But Talha, what do you think
if Gretl starts to use "tabs" just like internet browsers (Mozilla Firefox,
Internet Explorer, and Safari)?
I am not sure about whether my proposal would make things look too
confusing as long as all objects are specified with their types in the
column next to them and have their own nice looking icons in the icon
view. This setup enables easily performing complex operations via the
GUI representing an important innovation in the domain of econometric
software. For example one could in the future select combinations of
variables, scalars and matrices and do all sorts of operations using a
right click menu or a "Linear algebra" toolbar.
I know we have the console for doing everything but the same argument
can be made for performing any complex operation outside the domain of
econometrics. Some people prefer doing everyting using the console
instead of a GUI environment such as KDE or Gnome. The innovation here
is to make it possible to easily do everyting with a few mouse clicks.
Think of how Photoshop makes extremely complex calculations easily
accessible via GUI. There also exists command line tools such as
ImageMagic for performing complex operations on graphics files as
well.
On the other hand, I guess tabs could be nice too :-) This does not
cancel the other parts of my proposal regarding making the main window
switch between the icon view and detailed list view as well as being
able to sort items by cliciking on the column heads etc.
Talha
--
“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far
more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment.” - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
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