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Add Gonzo UI Manifest for pies, tabs, tiles, and overlays.
Constitutional chrome notes: HST method + Sims Framework shop name + felt-creature craft, wired into designs index and PieCraft.
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‎documentation/designs/GONZO-UI-MANIFEST.md‎

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# Gonzo UI Manifest — fear and loathing of traditional chrome
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**Status:** Constitutional design notes for MicropolisCore UI modules
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**Monorepo:** MicropolisCore
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**Companion docs:** [classical-hci-vs-aesthetic-ui.md](classical-hci-vs-aesthetic-ui.md) · [designing-inward-miyamoto-principles.md](designing-inward-miyamoto-principles.md) · [piecraft/README.md](piecraft/README.md) · [../notes/PIE-TAB-WINDOWS.md](../notes/PIE-TAB-WINDOWS.md) · [virtual-pointer-and-pie-cursors.md](virtual-pointer-and-pie-cursors.md) · [map-compositing-and-measurement.md](map-compositing-and-measurement.md) · [ui-frame-nine-slice.md](ui-frame-nine-slice.md) · [simcity-tool-palette-design.md](simcity-tool-palette-design.md)
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> *Gonzo Interface Design* — UI that reports from **inside** the interaction: subjective, stunt-capable, sincerely weird. Journalism’s immersion crossed with stagecraft’s commitment. No borrowed trademarks. No borrowed mascots. Nap left on the felt.
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---
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## Why this file exists
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MicropolisCore’s interaction stack — pie menus, tabbed stacks, tile views, overlays, measures, direct manipulation — inherits two shop names and one method:
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1. **Shop name (history).** Inside *The Sims* Framework, the Windows UI shell was codenamed **Gonzo** (`gonzo.h`, `Gonzo::Main`, Win32 class `"Gonzo"`, `GZ*` types; companion umbrella **Rizzo**). It was never a consumer SKU. Reusing the word here reclaims an insider label the way **Micropolis** reclaimed the city sim after **SimCity** stayed trademarked — different legal story, same instinct: keep the name that meant something in the room.
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2. **Method (HST).** [Gonzo journalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzo_journalism) puts the reporter *in* the story; subjectivity is the instrument. Gonzo UI puts the **designer and the user’s nervous system** in the chrome — splash text, honest errors, present-tense mess — instead of fake-objective system voice.
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3. **Stagecraft (felt creatures).** Handmade performance that invites empathy: soft edges, visible seams, earnest absurdity. **Felt creatures** is the K-line — *felt* the material and *felt* the verb. The audience completes the creature. Sims diamonds and need bars already run on that economy. Gonzo UI refuses to sand the nap off until feelings can’t stick.
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This manifesto does **not** ship Muppet characters, logos, or likenesses. The inheritance is craft energy, not franchise IP.
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Gonzo UI is **not** an excuse to abandon classical HCI. It sits *beside* Shneiderman / Tog / Weiser: [classical-hci-vs-aesthetic-ui.md](classical-hci-vs-aesthetic-ui.md) keeps **visible state, feedback, reversibility**. Aesthetic-minimalist UI hid state and called it calm. Gonzo UI makes state *felt* — legible *and* inhabited.
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---
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## Fear and loathing of traditional UI design
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What we refuse (the Las Vegas of chrome):
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| Traditional habit | Why we loathe it |
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|-------------------|------------------|
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| Invisible “professional” chrome | Lies about authorship; trains users that software has no taste |
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| Objective system voice | “An error has occurred” — the computer gaslights while drowning |
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| Usability as sterilization | Removes every cue that would let empathy and muscle memory grow |
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| Retro in quotation marks | Irony-poisoned nostalgia; costume without commitment |
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| Screenshot-first design | Ships the Q3 keynote still; users inherit the hangover |
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| Hidden gesture modes | Modes without handles; calm tech misread as illegibility |
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| Dashboard voyeurism | Watching numbers instead of grabbing the world |
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| Error shame | Red banners that punish exploration |
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**Fear:** shipping another strip of flat blue pills that could belong to any SaaS.
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**Loathing:** pretending the city under the cursor is a spreadsheet with a theme pack.
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---
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## The muppetry of Gonzo UI (no trademarks)
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Stagecraft rules we *do* keep:
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- **Commitment to the bit.** If the shell is playful, go all the way — splash text, nine-slice frames, talking pie labels — no apologetic “ironically retro.”
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- **Stunt affordances.** Pie menus are the high-dive: showy, learnable, a little dangerous, memorable when you stick the landing ([gesture-space-and-pie-menus.md](gesture-space-and-pie-menus.md)).
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- **Category refusal.** A toolkit that is theme *and* holodeck *and* fan-culture joke without needing a solemn product category first.
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- **Failure as entertainment.** Missed slices, invalid placement bounce, comic empty cards — charm, not shame.
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- **Felt creatures.** Leave nap. Sparse signals, fat projection. The user finishes the feeling.
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---
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## Constitutional directives
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1. **LEAN INTO the hands.** Design inward from the gesture (Miyamoto / [designing-inward-miyamoto-principles.md](designing-inward-miyamoto-principles.md)); Gonzo adds: the face in the splash text is allowed to smirk.
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2. **Visible state, inhabited.** Classical HCI visibility + subjective host voice. Never hide a scrollbar to look modern.
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3. **Direct manipulation first.** Continuous representation, rapid reversible incremental feedback ([Shneiderman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_manipulation_interface)). Gonzo means the *feedback has character* — bounce, blink, label — not that we replace DM with forms.
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4. **Pies saturate gesture space.** Prefer self-revealing radials over blind multitouch counts ([automotive-touch-ui-vs-pie-menus.md](automotive-touch-ui-vs-pie-menus.md)).
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5. **Tabs and stacks are HyperCard with nap.** Cards on any edge; pie on the tab without raising the wrong overlay ([PIE-TAB-WINDOWS.md](../notes/PIE-TAB-WINDOWS.md)).
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6. **Maps are places, not charts.** Zoom, pan, and overlays should feel like moving a camera through a city — measures are costumes the world wears ([map-compositing-and-measurement.md](map-compositing-and-measurement.md)).
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7. **No EA assets in the kit.** Themes may *evoke* Sims-era shell language; ship no copyrighted art. Users bring their own game files and screenshots.
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8. **Name decompresses.** *Gonzo Pie Menus*, *Gonzo Tabbed Windows* — HST + shop history. Package ids may stay `gonzo-*` / `GZ` without requiring a Disney story.
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---
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## Applied: fear/loathing vs Gonzo, by module
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### Direct manipulation
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| Fear & loathing | Gonzo |
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|-----------------|--------|
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| Property sheets for everything that should be a drag | Grab the object; the world answers under the cursor |
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| Commit dialogs for incremental edits | Continuous representation; undo is the safety net |
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| Ghosts that lie about validity | Invalid placement *bounces* with a readable reason |
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### Pie menus
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| Fear & loathing | Gonzo |
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|-----------------|--------|
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| Linear menus that waste gesture space | Radial slices; angle-at-release; mouse-ahead rehearsal |
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| Icons without rehearsal path | Self-revealing wedges; talking labels when voice helps |
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| Patent FUD paralysis | Ship the interaction; see [pie-menu-patent-fud.md](pie-menu-patent-fud.md) |
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Modules: `PieMenu.svelte`, PieCraft model, holodeck pie plugin, [virtual-pointer-and-pie-cursors.md](virtual-pointer-and-pie-cursors.md).
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### Tabbed windows / stacks / cards
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| Fear & loathing | Gonzo |
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|-----------------|--------|
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| Single top tab strip as religion | Tabs on **any** edge; stacks that float and dock |
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| Modal dialogs that trap the city | Cards that peel into overlay floats and return |
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| Chrome that ignores the chat nexus | Chat + sim messages as actionable navigation |
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See [PIE-TAB-WINDOWS.md](../notes/PIE-TAB-WINDOWS.md).
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### Tile views / mapping / zoom / scroll
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| Fear & loathing | Gonzo |
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|-----------------|--------|
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| Zoom that loses the cursor’s meaning | Zoom around the point of interest; tile-frame cursor stays honest |
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| Scrollbars deleted for “clean” | Scrollbars as felt handles; autoscroll that respects the pie |
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| Minimap as unread decoration | Minimap rectangles you can drag — cameras you can grab |
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`TileView`, editor vs map cards, pinned live views (helicopter/monster).
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### Overlays / data visualization
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| Fear & loathing | Gonzo |
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|-----------------|--------|
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| Detached chart dashboards | Metrics as **costumes on the map** — MOP/color planes composited in place |
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| Legend in a PDF | Legend as cursor/palette language ([ui-frame-nine-slice.md](ui-frame-nine-slice.md), tool palette borders) |
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| One overlay to rule them all | Stackable planes; measures as bindable JSON props |
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See [map-compositing-and-measurement.md](map-compositing-and-measurement.md), sprite overlay playbooks.
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### Tool palettes / cursors
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| Fear & loathing | Gonzo |
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|-----------------|--------|
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| Flat icon grids with no cost language | Totem-pole palette; icon size ↔ cost; border = cursor legend |
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| System arrow for every tool | Tool cursors as characters in the scene |
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See [simcity-tool-palette-design.md](simcity-tool-palette-design.md).
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---
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## Naming
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| Use | Form |
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|-----|------|
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| Manifest / philosophy | **Gonzo UI**, *Gonzo Interface Design* |
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| Features | Gonzo Pie Menus, Gonzo Tabbed Windows, Gonzo Tile Views |
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| Code / packages | `gonzo-*`, `GZ` prefix where it echoes Framework history |
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| Public story | HST method + Maxis shop codename + felt-creature craft |
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| Never | Muppet characters, logos, “official” franchise cosplay |
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Micropolis renamed the *city* product. Gonzo names the *hands* — the shell you feel with.
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---
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## Relationship to other constitutions
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```text
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Miyamoto (hands/face inward) ──┐
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Classical HCI (visible state) ─┼──► Gonzo UI (inhabited, stunt-capable chrome)
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Felt-creature stagecraft ──────┘
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│
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▼
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PieCraft · PIE-TAB-WINDOWS · TileView · Overlays · Holodeck
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```
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If a change makes the city harder to *feel with*, it fails this manifest even if it screenshots cleaner.
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---
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## K-lines
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- **GONZO-UI** — invoke this file
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- **FELT CREATURES** — material *and* empathy; leave nap
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- **FEAR AND LOATHING** — refuse sterilized chrome and gaslight errors
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- **STUNT AFFORDANCE** — pies, bounce, talking labels
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- **INHABITED CHROME** — authorship visible; splash text allowed to smirk

‎documentation/designs/README.md‎

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Read these alongside:
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- `documentation/designs/GONZO-UI-MANIFEST.md` — UI constitution (pies, tabs, tiles, overlays)
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- `documentation/notes/PIE-TAB-WINDOWS.md`
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- `documentation/notes/MultiPlayerIdeas.txt`
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- `skills/micropolis/`
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[interaction-design-articles-index.md](interaction-design-articles-index.md) — includes [Brad Myers / Garnet / VPL HN corpus](brad-myers-visual-programming-hn.md)
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**Gonzo UI constitution:** [GONZO-UI-MANIFEST.md](GONZO-UI-MANIFEST.md) — fear & loathing of sterilized chrome; felt-creature stagecraft; Gonzo applied to pies, tabs, tile views, overlays, DM, zoom/scroll/map. HST method + Sims Framework shop codename (no franchise mascots).
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**Pie menus & PieCraft:** [piecraft/README.md](piecraft/README.md) — runtime-editable pies, game design, Target/Pie/Slice/Item model, links to holodeck + SimCity palette
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### Platform and integration

‎documentation/designs/interaction-design-articles-index.md‎

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| 2 | [`gesture-space-and-pie-menus.md`](gesture-space-and-pie-menus.md) | Pies *saturate* gesture space; stroke recognisers leave most of it as syntax errors | …you want the feel of pies — preview, reselection, mouse-ahead by rehearsal |
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| 3 | [`submenu-aiming-and-fitts-law.md`](submenu-aiming-and-fitts-law.md) | Tognazzini's 1986 `<`-shaped buffer was specified in the 1987 Apple HIG; Amazon rediscovered it in 2013 | …you're shipping linear submenus and inherit none of the toolkit ergonomics |
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| 4 | [`classical-hci-vs-aesthetic-ui.md`](classical-hci-vs-aesthetic-ui.md) | "Calm technology" was never an excuse to hide state; aesthetic-minimalist UI decouples animation from input | …you're auditing motion / gesture bugs that don't fit a Fitts frame |
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| 4b | [`GONZO-UI-MANIFEST.md`](GONZO-UI-MANIFEST.md) | Fear & loathing of sterilized chrome; felt creatures; Gonzo pies/tabs/tiles/overlays — HST + Sims Framework shop name | …you're shaping Micropolis chrome personality without abandoning HCI |
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| 5 | [`pie-menu-patent-fud.md`](pie-menu-patent-fud.md) | The Alias marking-menu patent was narrow; the marketing campaign was broad; the chilling effect cost twenty years | …you need Gordon Kurtenbach's email and the full Buxton/Kinetix story |
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| 6 | [`dasher-steering-law-accessibility.md`](dasher-steering-law-accessibility.md) | Dasher converts a continuous steering signal into text via a language-model-shaped probability tunnel; Ada Majorek programs in it with a head-mouse | …you're building non-keyboard input or thinking about LLM-aware editors |
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| 7 | [`aquery-programmable-accessibility.md`](aquery-programmable-accessibility.md) | jQuery-shaped selectors and plugins over the accessibility tree, with Prefab-pixel fallback. Don proposed it in 2015; nobody shipped it | …you're trying to script other apps and want to know what almost existed |

‎documentation/designs/piecraft/README.md‎

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| MicropolisCore artifact | PieCraft / pie lineage |
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| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
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| [GONZO-UI-MANIFEST.md](../GONZO-UI-MANIFEST.md) | Constitutional chrome: inhabited, stunt-capable, felt-creature |
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| [simcity-tool-palette-design.md](../simcity-tool-palette-design.md) | Curated totem pole = **designer** pies; MP cursor legend |
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| [virtual-pointer-and-pie-cursors.md](../virtual-pointer-and-pie-cursors.md) | Virtual mouse, no menu-warp; tile autoscroll |
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| [ui-frame-nine-slice.md](../ui-frame-nine-slice.md) | Tool cursor frames = palette border language |

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