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Much of what is said below is to do with consistency and standards. Providing the user with a consistent, reliable interface is the first step towards producing a powerful environment, and one that the user will want to work with instead of just being forced to.
For a full description of the general principles you should adopt in writing an application to run under the Wimp see the chapter entitled General principles in the RISC OS Style Guide?.
The following table outlines those sections in the chapter entitled General Principles, in the RISC OS Style Guide?, which describe the basic principles you should follow:
Section | Describes: |
---|---|
Ease of use | how to make your application easy to use. |
Consistency | how to make applications work together in a uniform way. |
Quality | what not to do to ensure an application will continue to work with future operating system upgrades. |
Different configurations | how to ensure your application works with any reasonable hardware configuration that runs RISC OS. |
File handling | the rules for specifying files. |
Naming fonts | the syntax to use in naming fonts. |
Supporting | !Help what help you should provide in supporting the !Help application, and what you can assume the user knows. |
Other important factors that you must consider when writing an application include the
following:
The following points should be noted, to ensure that your application is compatible with future versions of the Wimp and behaves as well as it can with old versions of the Wimp.
RISC OS system software has been written to allow you to write fast, responsive applications. For a description of how best to optimise the responsiveness of your application see the section entitled Responsiveness in the Screen handling chapter of the RISC OS Style Guide?.
Covering a wide range of screen modes can seem troublesome when constructing an application, but it allows a wide price-range for the end user, who can choose between resolution and cost. Not relying on screen size allows your program to move easily to new better screens and modes when they become available.
Your application will be easier to understand if your prompts and documentation use the standard RISC OS terminology defined in the chapter entitled Terminology in the RISC OS Style Guide?.