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I forgot to mock active desktop, sorry...
The reason why Microsoft bundled IE with Windows file system was not
to bring some extra functionality to folks, but to make their browser
inseparate from Windows - the operating system. The reason was to
shoot Netscape off the browsing sky and others as well. They
succeeded. That's why Microsoft's in court right now.
Web pages on desktop? Gimme a break... What's the extra gain you get
from it - compared to just an ordinary browser window running in the
background with that fooken stock page open all the time? If you want
to see some page immediately every time you start your Mac, just put
an alias to the page on your startup folder. (You can drag the
address out of the URL field in the browser and drop it as a URL
shortcut wherever you want to...)
There are a lot of better things for utilizing the desktop than
making it to some kind of interactive background picture... Another
reason for that active desktop idea was maybe, that Microsoft
realized it wasn't really using the desktop for anything useful
(because all the programs are usually run in full screen mode).
I think it's good to separate the things that are outside and the
things that are inside of the computer. Web is outside, hard disk is
inside. The logic for using them can be the same (I'd like them to
be...) but you should very clearly know all the time, when you're
connected to net and when you're not.
>You can open the browser *inside* practically any window
You can use Apple HTML Rendering Library for the same purpose in Mac.
Eudora shows HTML mail using it. It's not as sophisticated as IE, but
it can handle most of the basic stuff... Probably it uses the code
from Apple's discontinued Cyberdog web browser...
[Putting things to Startup menu versus Apple menu]:
> Windows does this automatically, which is easier for the "muffin" level
>user.
... and after about ten installations you have a HUGE "Programs"
submenusubmensubmenu complex
(http://commie.oy.com/typicalwindowstartmenu.gif) there. Compared to
my Apple menu (http://commie.oy.com/mymacapplemenu.gif) you find a
_lot_ of useless crap.
Because you drag your application to the hard disk in Mac - while
installing - you very clearly know where they are. Usually an average
Windows user don't have a clue. Because an average Mac user makes the
alias to the proggy him/herself (wherever he/she wants to), he/she
knows the difference between an alias and the file. Usually and
average Windows user can't tell the difference between a shortcut and
a real file.
But, of course you see installers on Mac-side too... But for example
IE installation is just a drag and a drop.
> > menu is more flexible: you can go to the submenu folders directly
>> (select "Control Panels" without selecting any control panel, and you
>> go to the control panels folder.
>
> I'm not quite sure what you're talking about, but you can customize
>Start menu in Windows a great deal, too.
Again, you can make Windows Startup menu as simple as my Apple menu,
but for some reason or other I keep seeing only these information
overload Startup menus... (unless I've organized them myself). Again,
the feature is there in Windows too, but who uses it? What does
_your_ Startup menu look like?
I hope I don't have to point out, which one of these menus is faster to use...
BTW, what I meant by "getting to the Control Panels in Mac thru the
Apple menu" was (look at the Apple menu picture: 1) Select Apple
menu, 2) Select the "Control Panels", but do not select any
subselection. Now you're in the control panels folder and you can
trash unnecessary control panels.
Put an alias (= shortcut) of some folder to Apple menu and you'll see
the folder hierarchy of the item alias is pointing to. Even Mac
aliases are more clever than Windows shortcuts. If you move the real
file, the alias doesn't break (unless you move it to another disk).
[Back to hiding programs]:
> > > - Using right-click to kill or minimise tasks in Windows is a nice
> > >feature.
>> You can hide applications in Mac from the Finder menu (or
>> option-clicking on the application switcher).
>
> Yeah, but it's not as easy.
What??? I think it's a lot easier to use some feature that is
_visible_ all the time (like Finder menu), than to find a gimmick
that's hidden behind the second mouse button on an area of the
interface, where you're not supposed to click anything at all ...
To hide all the windows in Windows, you have to click the right mouse
button on the part of the taskbar that has no buttons... It takes
annoying aiming sometimes if the taskbar is full of window titles,
and for me it took a couple of years to notice the whole feature in
the first place...
The feature is hidden in a place where you don't suppose that you can
do _anything_ by clicking _any_ mouse button... Clicking the first
mouse button on the empty taskbar area doesn't do anything, so why
would the second mouse button give you any alternative to the first
one? It's not the first thing you'll think about, because logically
it would be "doing nothing in an alternative way".
[Mac GUI consistency]:
>Why do Mac proggies follow the guidelines so well? I was
> > trying to say that UI's in Mac proggies are a lot more "in line".
>
> Well that is true, but I don't think that's something you can blame the
>GUI for. PC is an open standard (even though Windows isn't), Mac is not.
>Therefore Apple has a greater influence over the software developers.
Ehm... we're talking about third party software developers, aren't
we? I can assure you, that every application developed for Mac
_doesn't_ have to be qualified by Apple before releasing... There's
no Apple's greater influence over the software developers because of
the closed system (and Mac is _more_ open than Windows in this area -
there are no secret ways to use Mac features that only Apple can
utilize and nobody else can).
The only thing Apple has done is just some heavy rant about how
important it is to follow some guidelines in GUI design. Apple has
succeeded, Microsoft has not.
> > Right-click logic is not clear, when you add third party software there.
>
> Again, I wouldn't blame Windows or Microsoft for that.
>
What does it help to blame anyone, if the thing just doesn't work? I
think Microsoft should've been more aggressive in talking about the
interface consistency...
>I don't think GUI
>designers should be the ones to force people to do things that way if
>they don't feel comfortable about it.
I think the designers should have balls to decide, which one is the
primary method, which one is the secondary, how to keep the secondary
method out of the way from mixing up the primary method, etc... How
to make becoming acquainted with the OS logic as easy as possible...
How to avoid information overload and still keep the interface
flexible enough for power users...
Windows serves only the needs of power users well... Newbies drown
into information overload. You're reading all kinds of help text all
the time, using automatic installers and all that, but it take a lot
more time to learn the logic of everything.
> The average user doesn't need to alter the TCP/IP setting but very
>rarely
... so it's hidden to "Start Menu -> Control Panels -> Network ->
Settings -> Protocols -> TCP/IP"... It's in a subwindow of a control
panel window's subpage. I think that just pure wickedness... Takes
some time to find it...
[Keyboard use in Mac]:
> Power users who know what they want, can use keyboard shortcuts and
>shortcut icons. Inexperienced users find what they want easier if there
>aren't many choices visible at the time.
You call using shorcut icons "power using"? In Mac, that's basic
use... You get used to the idea of aliases very soon, because you get
used to the file system immediately.
But talking about keyboard use...
To select things: cursor keys.
To open something: apple+O
To get really fast to some file in a folder: Type a couple of first
letters of the file name
To get to the next file in alphabetical order: tab
To get to the previous file in alphabetical order: shift+tab
To close a window: apple+W
To get to Mac Help Center: shift+apple+?
Etc...
What's different from Windows is only that you can't open menus with
keyboard. That's hardly a loss, because getting to menus with mouse
in Mac is so fast. While you're still figuring out in Windows, which
key should be pressed down together with the alt key, you've already
opened the menu on Mac.
[Originality]:
>Desktop computer was first introduced to the mass market by IBM so Apple
>stole the idea from them. And so on. What's the point? If a person wants
>to buy a computer today, why should he/she be interested in who was the
>original innovator? He/she wants a computer and an OS that fulfill
>his/her needs, that's all.
I agree... But I was talking about the fact that Microsoft user
interface quality comes from the fact that Microsoft made a couple of
their first key products that used GUI for the first time for Mac
originally. They followed the Apple Human Interface guideline very
well back then... Probably one of the most important things Microsoft
has learned from Apple.
And Microsoft didn't steal Apple GUI, but Gates made clever contract
with Apple that allowed Microsoft to copy "some parts of the
interface" to Windows. Apple sued Microsoft, but they settled the
hassle: Microsoft bought some Apple stock a couple of years ago...
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