Hmm...

right now I have one burning question:

Why build a completely new layer of indirection with different API instead of improving and extending Roassal (=Telescope alongside Roassal instead of on top of it)? It seems like a lot of effort went into creating it while it would have had bigger and better impact in Roassal...

So, how do you tell builder that you want to color or add interaction to a "group" of nodes and not all the nodes in the visu? Groups are first-class entities in Telescope. Composites are first class entities with customizable interactions.

Roassal has RTGroup, which is obviously less powerful, but often enough. Plus the

"if node matches this add/change/do this" that is also implemented by Telescope.

Moreover, the model takes care of updating only the concerned nodes and not all of the visualization.

Roassal updates only what should be updated, not the whole visualization. (And if some particular builder does rerender everything, that's the builder's problem.) After all this is transitive --- if Telescope can do partial changes and is on top of Roassal, so can Roassal do it...

The paper is not the best way to see what Telescope is able to.

Look at the demos and the presentation Anne did at Esug: http://www.slideshare.net/GuillaumeLarcheveque/telescope-introduction-and-example

I saw the presentation at ESUG but I wanted more insight (or documentation)...

Anyway, I'll continue my exploration... but the idea that I might need interaction between Telescope and Roassal elements and concepts doesn't make me happy...

Peter