Graphical User Interface

Welcome aboard Quit. No worries about the forum category as you picked the right one. Creative content includes graphics..

One note about your post; Free Software as well as "open source" software is not "freeware" as you called it. Freeware is a different kind of software, free to download and use, but sometimes not free to make multiple copies of and share as well as not free to modify the source code (you don't even have access to it). True Free Software must adhere to this definition.

I'd bet there is. There usually are art teams or forums specific to a certain distro. For example there is an Ubuntu Art Team and the Ubuntu Art site. You also have sites like KDE-Look.org and GNOME-Look.org where artists and designers publish their makings, anything from wallpapers and splash screens to desktop themes..

You can also go around any software development forums and see what is in the making and possibly offer to make an application interface for some program etc.

It is of course also possible that you find someone to work with here as well. We welcome cooperative projects that further Free Software and Free Culture and can colaborate, give feedback, ideas etc..

Thanks
Daniel

Thanks for the links.

It's not so much the art I'm interested in, it's actually the application thereof.

I'd like to 'join-forces-to-combine-mecha-open-sourcing' with a programmer or group of programmers. Like Transformers, or something.

You see, I feel I have a good understanding of GUI and I would like to work with programmers of open sourced apps to help make them a treat to use.

So I'm more interested in mixing with programmers than designers or artists, becuase all a group of artists can do is draw

For instance, this page we're on right now is incredibly powerfull in terms of the ammount of things it's doing at once, and that's great for a development community, but it's no good for most people who just want to start a Hello Kitty forum, or some other straightforward group.

That's not to say that these other forums shouldn't be feature packed, but I'd like to find some visual way of organising these things so that they are intuitive and simple to use.

For example, I bet if you gave me the source code for this place I wouldn't know what to do with it.

Why can't an open source forum have a sort of 'self installing' quality to it, with a secure area for the admin to be able to mod it to their specifications within a web page on the same forum?

Sort of like when you get a disk image and drop it into your OS.
Why can't plugging a forum be as (relatively) simple as that?

And that's what I want to do, design and engineer software and GUI with a programmer, for the sake of people like myself who can't figure out how to plug a phpBB into their site.

Surely that's what we're working towards?

Then I'd say developer forums would be your best bet, as well as some general Free Software forums (like the new one we've started at Nuxified.org) where you might find people interesting in your GUI ideas.

I see your point. I agree we certainly need more user-friendly options for people to be able to just sort of "plug it in" and it works.

Actually, some web applications already have installers, though I think you are looking for something even more sofisticated. Usual installers of web applications still require you to manually upload files to a web server, create a database and database user and write them into an installer. If those tasks could be somehow automated that would be incredible. Basically, it could be just a package you could click on and in a few brain-dead easy steps would install to a server. For example, to install a forum software to a remote server the only question such installer should ask is what is your FTP address. :-)

I'd say there most likely are programmers that would be interested in something like this. You'd just have to hang out in places they're most likely to be in, like Free Software development forums..

Cool, cheers.

So if this isn't an artist or programmer forum what is it?
A users forum? I'm bit confused.

Questions, questions, questions. I'm full of it... erm, them.

Sorry to keep going on, I'm just trying to understand what this place is about.

I'd mostly agree with the above explanation. Well said. :-)

It IS however welcome to create and/or promote art, software etc. here as long as it is free and unrestrictive since that's part of the free culture. On libervis.com we are discussing free culture, commenting free culture, fostering cooperation on cultivating free culture and creating free culture. The hope is to create a larger free culture community here and allow for basically all the things that community does, and community doesn't only talk, it creates too.. so that's not excluded.

Though it is true there may not be many programmers here right now, it is possible that you could run into one (why not). In either case you're welcome to come and propose your idea, maybe even showcase what you've already done, and we can then go and give you some feedback and further ideas..

Thanks

Good stuff.

I'm not sure where you would classify my political ideology as I have a wide range of opinions (on everything, so I'm told).

My personal approach to creating the UI for software is to be secretive and guarded about my ideas, then work hard developing something and then, when I'm happy to release it, I like the idea of releasing it totally. So it becomes something in the public domain.

I think my initial approach of secretivness is to allow me to focus on making the app as robust as possible while maintaining a focussed vision what the end result should be. Sort of like the way Nintendo or Apple make their software. Proud and confident and above all quiet, then the difference comes once it's released.

I'm 25 now but I remember being really excited by the internet when we had it at college. I remember there being a massive swell of communities and utilities sloshing around, then someone worked out they could charge you £14.99 a months for something that needed no work to maintain. Bandwidth only costs becuase someone put a price on it.

I digress, I want to put something back into the internet.
I want it to be a good, strong programme that has a real benefit and enable EVERYONE to get good use out of it.

I'm still not sure how I feel about someone profiting off of my hard work.

Well, as long as they built enough of their own soul into it.
The thought of someone taking my work and selling it (after changing the splash screen or something) makes me uneasy, but then if people know they can get it for free, why would they pay?

Swings and round abouts I guess.

The thought of Coke or Nike profiting off my work doesn't make me feel happy, but then I guess if yo're going to enable EVERYONE it has to be EVERYONE.

And stuff.

Sorry, I went on a ramble there. Where did you say the developers forums were again?

:-)

It's only natural for everyone to have opinion on just about anything.

Keeping software private and unreleased developing it alone inhouse is alright. Only if you release it, but still keep it under restrictive proprietary terms, that's gonna adversly affect your users (their freedoms).

That said, you might consider an alternative approach to developing it privately. You might open it up, release it to the programmers community and then get their help, knowledge and resources to develop your program faster into a good quality program. That's known to work well.

I'd say that's a great attitude. I think most of us hooked on to the net have much to thanks to many people who made internet and whatever it is used for possible. So many knowledge, so many ideas and such great free software distributed on the net that we then use every day calls for our respect and to give back to it. Internet enables a community and noone has right to block these communities from forming. Unfortunately, that's what big industry is trying to do, and that's what sites like Libervis.com try to oppose by spreading awareness through discussion, education, cooperative projects etc.

If you use a copyleft style license for your software, like GPL, then noone will be able to profit from software you initially wrote any more than you will be able to profit from it. GPL requires everyone who builds on your software to give you credit and disallows them to make this software proprietary and license it for big bucks (that would be considered a violation of law). Everyone who gets your software with freedoms that you allowed must share this software with those same freedoms for anyone else. So, noone is allowed to restrict them for profit and that way gain a significant advantage over you.

Exploatation of programmers just doesn't happen in a Free Software community because just as users (which programmers are as well) they have equal freedoms and equaly benefit from it.

Success and profit are fairly distributed, just as the effort to create was. In a new free world, everything is a network and everything is distributed.

Well, one strictly programming forum that I know of is http://www.programmingforums.org/ It however isn't necessarily all about Free Software programmers although I think most of them develop Free Software. Another good place to find Free Software and GNU/Linux programmers are various GNU/Linux support forums. We have one at http://www.nuxified.org which is new and growing, so you might go and try there. There are other options as well, like http://www.linuxquestions.org .

We of course recommend Nuxified.org, not only because it is part of Libervis Network, but because it is more strict in promoting Free Software and spirit of cooperation. It is completely community oriented. You can help us grow there. :-)

Thanks
Daniel

programmingforums.org isn't very free software-friendly, but it's still something.

Hi,

I tried to log on to your one but it won't send me an email to activate my account.

Can you have a look at it for me please?

Same username, it seems to be stuck, and there's not way of contacting you on THAT forum unles you've logged in, which is a bit of an oversight!

Cheers.

Other registrants are normally activated so far. I imagine it would gotten to you eventually. If not then there may be problems with your email (you have a strange email address, as if you've just opened it)...

I have activated you manually. :-)

You're right. I should make that easier. Will do.

Cheers
Daniel