frontend redesign :-)

[Mark S. Miller <mark>]

I don't get the bit about dots vs bubbles.  I've seen the proposed fe
look, but am (apparently) not familiar with the terminology.

I love the text selection idea!  The button appearing nearby to
represent the selected text as a draggable entity is WONDERFUL!  I've
heard you and Ravi talk about similar ideas in the abstract before,
but haven't before heard of a way to fit it into the Mac user
interface conventions.

Speaking of mac user interface conventions, I believe that dragging
the button should be move (as you suggested), but option-drag should
be vcopy, not double-click-drag.  Option-drag is a standard way of
duplicating elements in many Mac graphics editors.  Besides that, I
think double-click-drag is an awkward motion.

Double clicking is kind of a way to open things up.  I suggest that
double clicking on a text button means start a new document (and new
document window) whose initial contents are the selected text.  I
don't know if this is useful enough to use up double-click on a button
for this, but assuming it is...  For consistency (perhaps a foolish
consistency) just double clicking both starts a new document & removes
the text from its original location (i.e., a move).  Option-double-
click starts the new document with the selected text & leaves the text
where it came from (i.e., a vcopy).

Note that we still must support the Mac "cut-copy-paste-clipboard"
interface.

It would be wonderful if these text-selection-buttons could also serve
as a visually reified link-end for creating links.  Maybe
double-clicking makes it persistent, so that later you can form a link
by indicating several persistent buttons.

I haven't been following the fe design.  Does the above make any
sense?