> In Windows 2000 you can right-click the icon, select "Properties",
>click "Change Icon" on the appearing menu and get a list of available
>icons. Tho this only works with shortcuts, I think. Otherwise the icon
>shows the file association, which can be also altered easily. (I think
>you can change files' and folders' icons somewhere too, but dunno where
>and how. I suppose it's rather complicated.)
No you can't. That's because of the file system limitation.
In Mac, changing the icon: 1) Copy some picture somewhere, 2) take
information of the file, 3) click on the icon in the information
window, 4) paste. A bit less complicated than in Windoze... Less
clicks, less sub-pages, less information overload. As usual.
>I think it's good
>that changing icons is not *too* easy, because it would be really
>confusing if every icon was different and didn't indicate at all whether
>this or that file was a program file, document or a folder.
I can tell you that Mac users _love_ to change all the icons... But I
agree that this is not really important... (Still I've changed my
hard disk icons just for fun...)
>Mac doesn't automatically include the
>file extension when saving files. This stupidity results in many a
>difficulty when transferring data from platform to another..
Hmmm... Which applications are you referring to? This has really
changed after the internet boom... Photosop puts file extensions to
the file names by default, Peak does, Illustrator does... In OS X,
there will be both: file extensions and the creator/type metadata.
> I think this is purely a matter of opinion.
Most of opinions are matters of opinion....
>I like the fact that
>they're all nicely tucked away under one folder. You can always make a
>shortcut if you want.
For a newbie, it's good to see the disk appear on the desktop.
Simplifies things.
> > Unlike in Windows, in Mac you really use the desktop for the purpose
>> it name implies it's there for. It's the visual TEMP folder, in
>> practice. You drag files to it for temporaly storage and later you
>> drag them to other application... In Windows, you usually don't even
>
> No reason why you can't use it in Windows that way too.
... because 95% of your time on Windows you use the proggies in full
screen mode... Maybe not _you_ but the average user does.
> Nobody tells you to run all applications fullscreen.
... still everyone does it.
> By default, very
>few programs open fullscreen (at least in Win2k). I for one have often
>to maximize the view because I'm accustomed to the old Windows 3.x way
>of working with fullscreen windows, but that's just *my* handicap.
>
Seems to be very usual handicap on Windows-side.
Actually, this is my key point: You _can_ use Windows in very
Mac-like way (despite some limitations), but you don't, because the
OS (or some mental state of all the Windows users) won't encourage
you to it... Sad...
> But you can drag and drop in fullscreen mode! (In Windows 2000 at
>least.) OK, I admit it's bugged out that you can't drag straight to the
>taskbar, but if you start the drag, move the cursor over a taskbar item
>and wait for a second or so, the window is opened and you can drop the
>dragged item into the "new" window.
You mentioned the magic words "wait for a second or so".... A second
or so is a very long time in interface logic.
> I think this is some strange idea of Adobe engineers, since eg.
>PageMaker on the other hand works just like in Mac, with a transparent
>parent window. (I could be wrong about this since it's some time since
>I've last used PageMaker,
Nope, the thing in PageMaker is that you can open only one document
to it at the time. So, there is no problem with lost sub-windows,
because there aren't any of them...
It was some kind of guideline on Windows-side to use this kind of
large mother window, originally (at the times of the 3.x Windows...).
> Sure thing is, but as said, you can do it on Windows too.
... if you can get the clumsy nested window thingies to work for you
(after you've discovered that you don't have to run the proggies in
full-screen).
> It's just
>that many of us Windows users are so accustomed with the old Windows 3.x
>way of working that we don't know how to take advantage of the new UI.
You said it, buddy. ;) But I've wondered, how come the new Windows
users so often use the proggies in full-screen... They haven't used
3.x. In full-screen, you lose lot of the power of application
collaboration.
> Well, if you need to see more nontruncated window names on the taskbar,
>you can resize it.
... while you lost more the valuable screen size. I forgot to
mention, that in Mac the interface isn't in your way all the time...
> In Windows 2000 there is a feature that enables you to drag&drop
>shortcuts on a special section of the taskbar, is this what you mean or
>something else?
Nope, I was talking about popup windows. Drag a Mac window to the
bottom of the screen and it becomes a popup-window. Windows taskbar
made better.
What you're talking about is just a way to bring some part of the
desktop back in use... Because the desktop is hidden most of the time
in Windows, they probably made this feature to the taskbar... Thank
god _those_ icons don't stop responding to drag'n'drop...
... but I just wonder, why didn't they do well the whole desktop in
the first place? ... Now they have to fix the holes all the time...
> OK, this is a nice feature but personally I am not happy with the
>switcher interface. It's very confusing. If this hierarchical organizing
>of programs and documents could be accomplished on Windows taskbar style
>way, I'd be very happy with it.
What you're talking about? If you drag the Finder menu out of the
Apple menu bar, it becomes a floating program switcher. Hmmm... this
was introduced in OS 8.5, though...
> BTW, on the matter of switching between programs, I think it's really a
>pain in the ass on the Mac that you cannot switch between windows using
>a keyboard shortcut like on Windows (Alt-Tab).
Try apple key + tab ... but because you usually see all the open
proggies on Mac, you can just click their windows to get them on the
front.
> > And, Mac popup windows are _on_ _the_ _edge_ of the screen, which
>> again makes a lot bigger target (infinite height). In Windows,
>> taskbar buttons are one pixel off the screen edge. In Mac, you can
>> just throw the mouse down and it always hits the target. In Windows,
>> you have to slow down your mouse which is about five times slower
>> (this is not an estimation, but a researched fact. It's not a
>> coincidence that Mac menubar and the popup windows are on the edges
>> of the screen.
>
> OK, this is true. It should have been done better on Windows too. But,
>how critical is this, really? Do people click on the taskbar all the
>time? No, because they can use keyboard shortcuts.
You're missing my point: In Mac, the popupmenus continue being fully
responsive although they're minimized to the screen edge. I've found
it very effective.
> And anyway the
>frequency of the need to change between programs is not so great as to
>make the difference of 0.5 seconds or 2.5 seconds (or something of the
>like) very important.
Seems that either I didn't explain this clear enough, or you've mixed
up things...
> I am a bit sceptic about that 5x bit anyway.
You're mixing up things. 5x was the speed of menus, not popup
windows... Tog mentioned, how he ended up in this speed difference.
Talking about popup menus, of course it's slower to hit to the
targets in a window, that's not visible. But they pop up _very_ fast,
when you bring something on the title bar. I included a picture of
popup windows to this letter to clear what I was talking about...
> I
>would believe it takes 2-3 times longer to hit the button on Windows,
>but how quick it simply can be on Mac, since for me it usually takes
>around 1 s to change to another window using the taskbar?
>
>> "With Mac-OS, there is a single menu bar shared by every application
>> in the system. Though it does save a small amount of space, it makes
>> it difficult to determine which application's menu you are viewing."
>> Well well well... This is the classical one. I don't say anything, I
>> let the Mac interface designer say it.
>
> I think this is a good point! I don't think the article you are
>referring to gives a satisfactory answer to this..
Answer to the question five... What's the unsatisfactory part of it?
This answer also explains, why getting to the Mac pulldown menues
(and popup windows on the bottom of the screen) is so fast...
> - The question 3 *was* a trick question IMO, I mean I at least thought
>the original question was referring to a fixed point on the screen.
>Obviously the point where the cursor is, is impossible to miss, but
>what's the point?
The question was "List the five pixel locations on the screen that
the user can access fastest." and the answer was, 1) where the mouse
is right now and 2-5) the screen edges. The screen edges were the
point, the place where the mouse is right now, was a bit of a trick.
He continues to mention the screen edges all the time.
>But the original answer A on the page is not valid with Windows
>2000 with the possibility to add shortcuts to taskbar. And there have
>been Start menu and system tray even before, so I don't agree 100%.
How do you use Start menu to switch programs? Now I dropped...
> - Q5, the "extra credit" part: "The other 'advantage' usually ascribed
>to a menu bar at the top of each window is that they user always knows
>where to look for the items pertaining to the task they are carrying
>out. This is silly. Users may do various tasks within a given window,
>and the menu items may change." So what? I'm not getting the guy's
>point. It is an advantage to know which menu is related to which
>program!
If you see only one menu all the time, you always know that it's
related to the program you're working with. If you want to see all
the time, what's the program, tear the application switcher off the
Finder menu (in Mac).
> - Q7: What is this circular menu thingie? I thought it was something
>like the font selection pulldown menu on Mac, but the answer implies
>something else. Can't comment on that since I don't understand what
>we're talking about.. =)
Oh, he's talking about some Apple interface lab inventions that were
not implemented in Mac. Circular popup menus have been used in some
adventure games. The idea is, that the targets of the popup menu are
_around_ the mouse cursor, not _below_ it. So, your visual memory
remembers the locations better.
> - Q8: Great idea, but does Mac work that way?
Nope. :(
> But otherwise good points. It just overemphasizes the need for speed in
>changing between windows, lest only using mouse.
??? Switching between applications was not the key point here at all...
_I_ was talking about transferring data between applications... Tog
didn't talk about application switching at all...
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