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Re: [zigzag] Questions...



Hi Richard!

Writing this at the airport and without 'net connection, so I don't know
whether somebody will already have replied in detail when I send this.

Richard Palmer wrote:
> I've been playing with gzigzag for a few days and have a lot of
> questions!.

Great! :-)

> I've read through the docs and as much as the source code as
> I can grasp, but apologies if I ask something too stupid.

Ah, there are no stupid questions. Nobody knows all. :)

> - As I understand it from the docs the current default space is 'system
> space'? and users are not really meant to add cells to it. Is this
> correct? and if so where do users add their cells ( is this where slices
> come in?).

The 'system space' is everything that hangs from the homecell on
d.systemlist. To a large part, these are the same cells hanging down on
d.2 from the homecell-- Views, Key Bindings and so on. If you don't know
what you're doing, you should not tamper with the d.systemlist
connections; but the 'normal' dimensions (d.1, d.2, d.3, all you create
yourself) should be safe game. Disconnecting the rank down on d.2 is
safe, but usually you'd simply connect your cells to the homecell in
other dimensions (so that you can still access the rank with the
dimension lists and so on safely).

> - The various modules supplied all only work if the cells are laid out
> in the correct order ( e.g I had to read the source code to work out how
> to get the Mind module to generate output). Is their some way to force
> creation of cells in the required layout for a module or would users
> have to read the docs/code for each module to learn how to layout the
> cells?.

Generally, you have to read the docs (if you have to resort to the
source, something's wrong :o| ). Modules could define actions to create
those cells, but most don't. (Also, it's not clear to me how that would
work exactly.) There is currently no way to specify the structures
declaratively, which would allow the same structure definition to be
used for reading and creating a structure-- currently, it would mean the
modules would have to contain additional code that creates the structure.

> - Could the direction keys take an optional repetion argument ala vi so
> you can move faster through a row of cells ( e.g. '10i'  moves 10 cells
> at a time. )

That may be a reasonable feature... if you know how many cells you
approximatly want to step over, in advance. As we do not have a way to
show the number of a cell on a rank, like we show line numbers in
editors, I'm not sure how useful this one would be, but it could
certainly be tried.

Ted, if you have time, what do you think about this feature?

> - Could there be special head cells that automatically create a new cell
> ( not clone) if the user moves the cursor in a direction which has no
> current connecting cell( i.e. replicators). Would be a quicker way to
> create lots of cells in a rank(right word?).

I'd be opposed to this-- too much special casing. Instead, if creating
new cells is too slow for you, I suggest you create additional keybindings:

"Ctrl-Left" to "NEW X-"
"Ctrl-Down" to "NEW Y+"

and so on. That way, you could create new cells by using a modifier key
instead of using a prefix key.

> - Can cells be marked read-only / un-deletable ?

Currently not. At some point, it'll be possible to lock cells together
with preflets; I think this feature is related.

> - Is there a global cell text search ?

You can trick one. Go on the homecell; rotate to d.cellcreation (on the
y-axis, preferably), press double-quote (") to go into the mode where
you can enter text into the input buffer, enter the text you want to
search for, press double-quote again to go back into normal mode, press
Ctrl-F, enter the posward direction on d.cellcreation. (Ctrl-F searches
for a text on a rank; d.cellcreation has a rank containing all the cells
in the space.)

> - More docs and examples on modules please!.

Yes *sigh*.

However, actually, that will probably not happen: as you may know, we
are currently working on the 0.8 version of gzz, a complete rewrite. The
old modules won't work with that (unless they're rewritten), so we won't
spend time documenting them, probably.

> - Is there a way to see all the dimensions that a cell has connections
> on ( not just the current viewable 3). Trying to remember everything
> you have attached to a cell is a bit difficult.

Yes. Try the "Compass" view. (You have to clone it into the "Views" list
from the "AllViews" list.)

> - After adding a few dimensions it rapidly gets boring cycling through
>   them to change the current view. Is this something that can be changed
> or I am misunderstanding how it should work ( more than likely).

I fear That's The Way It Is, at least right now.

> Thats it for now. Its a really interesting program/project and I'd like
> to learn more and contribute, its just a bit frustrating trying to work
> it all out!.

I feel with you. It was the same for me when I started working on it.

If you want to contribute, do remember that we are currently working on
the 0.8 rewrite, but also remember that we have no idea when it will be
published. So you need to make a choice: do you want to dive into the
new code, whose release date *may* be quite far off still, or do you
want to improve the old code, which *we* hope to be legacy soon?

Anyways, I hope you'll stay with us. ;-)

Cheers,
- Benja