State chart

[getflourish]

Hi! This is an amazing piece of software that I loved using long time ago.

While it seems so simple to use, I realized how complex the underlying state, modes and interactions are.

How did you manage to keep track of everything when you designed it?

Was it through mere iteration or did you at one point make use of state charts or similar tools?

[scrod]

What a wonderful question! It was mostly an intuitive process to find out (mostly through trial and error) which UI behaviors felt expected as a result of various actions in the UI. And once I had a few of those behaviors implemented, the rest of the UI behaviors were essentially predetermined by those constraints.

That said, there are still some behaviors which haven't been predictable that I am unsatisfied with (e.g., tabbing between fields after using the global hotkey).

[getflourish]

Interesting! That’s how I usually go about it, too. Things fall into place.

That said, there are still some behaviors which haven't been predictable that I am unsatisfied with (e.g., tabbing between fields after using the global hotkey).

I’ve been using Notational Velocity as an example to learn more about state charts and it has been an interesting exercise. It forced me to look at every single behavior and I find it quite fascinating to understand the decisions you made.

While I’m still getting used to state charts, they really help to make every interaction behavior intentional, since they force me to bind every key in every mode and define what should happen. It’s ultimately boring code and verbose code compared to relying on out-of-the-box behavior of e.g. native controls, browser APIs, etc.