Re: .NET 3.0

Let's not lose the focus of this discussion here, which was end-user *FORM DESIGN*, and not customization in general.

IIRC it was actually about the need to expose form design and customization (cf John's post).

Skinning support aside (end-user designer support for which is not provided by the application in the case of Firefox, or most other skinnable apps i know of)

The difference between a built-in and a companion designer is rather "cosmetic", if I may say.

[...] None of this is something where a form designer like the VCL or WinForms designer being exposed to the end-user would be helpful for.

XUL could certainly use a designer.

But maybe the issue that your "end-user" isn't the same end-user.
IME in the business application world, the end-user isn't so "end", it'll often be a project manager/team of some sort, which will seek UI changes and data specifics, adjusting your executable to be then consumed by employees.

The WF designer is AFAICT targeted at a similar "end-user": a user "above" other users, yet not a developer.

Again: Johns claim was "almost all" applications would benefit from exposing a designer such as the WinForms form designer, to the end user. The claim was not about customization in general.

John's claim is very valid.
That special case of end-user is the one you sell your applications to, he's the one that'll want customizability. The other end-users, admittedly, often don't give a damn, and don't need any designer, they only want their monthly paycheck.

There is often more than one level between the developer and the end-user, where you find people that are neither developers nor final users, and want a bit of developer-level design and UI control, while staying rather firmly on the user side.

Outlook is the one exception that does provide full form design, but not for what i'd consider it's primary use as a mail client (again, you can customize your toolbars, select how to arrange the preview pane - that's not form design.

Well, Outlook is more of an industry standard, so what it does defines the "norm" of what people expect in a mail/newsreader.
Again, there are end-user that don't give a damn, but don't have purchase or decision power, and there are the just-above-end-user, that will care about being able to change/control/integrate things.

The Outlook form designer comes into place when you implement custom software solutions on top of outlook (say, to have users enter expense forms and submit them per email). When we go there, we enter "software development" territory, not standard "application usage".

That's all very relative. You're more into the domain of consultants and super-users than developers.
Some developers may dabble into that territory, but they are a very small minority, most of the people doing Outlook stuff don't consider themselves developers.

The same goes for Access which (though i don't use it) am sure
> allows creating forms for data entry. Ditto InfoPath.

Yeah, but most people using those don't consider themselves as developers, and for them, using this feature of Access isn't too different from formatting a word document or building a cool spreadsheet that tabulates whatever figures they have to tabulate.
Most will design Access form, and won't write more than the bare minimum of code that is required, many will not even code anything at all, they'll just add fields and tweak the layout, just as they would tweak a spreadsheet or a word header/footer.

All of these provide reasonable customizations (some more, some less or next-to none), but NONE of them allow you to redesign the basic layout of forms or dialogs. Can you drag around controls on the "Apply Gaussian Blur Filter" in PhotoShop? I don't think so.

There are user requests to improve customizability of PhotoShop (and other applications), and when reading them, it's clear that users would be happy to get Office-like capability.

Again, none of these applications would benefit from a full-fledged form designer being available to the end-user.

IMO that's just not true. Every single advance towards being able to change or tweak things (be it via scripting, UI modifier/designer, souped up plugins...) has always been well accepted, pretty much whatever the software.
In another thread you mention the calculator, well, there is a whole ecosystem of alternate calculators whose main merit is to allow the users to have different button arrangement/style and custom computations.

I use Windows Explorer pretty much daily. I'd also include version control, and applications such as RawShooter in the category.

Well the Windows Explorer may not have a full blown end-user designer, but with each version you're getting more and more UI customization options.
I actually expect that you'll soon enough see a Vista Explorer whose touted advantage is that end-user can entirely change its layout and reskin everything.

IMO the whole idea behind Avalon/WPF structures is actually that, if you dispel the technical fog, it's all about providing UIs easily customizable by an advanced an end-user, and allow the less advanced end-used to choose their visuals amidst a collection of ready-made UIs.

Again, Skinnable != end user dragging around the form layout.

How so?
Because the skin designer is a little rustic or isn't built-in doesn't change the fact that skinning support is all about allowing end-users to change the look and feel, add functionality or hide subtleties.
Some skinnable applications don't allow to change the layout, but all the more advanced ones do, and that's usually the long term aim of all skinning architectures.

Eric
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