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> Argh, the problem is there even if you don't work in fullscreen! If
>it'd bring to top every possible window when you're dragging your
>thingie quickly over them, it would for one thing mess up the Alt-Tab
>order of the windows.
Hmmm... yep, because in Windows alt+tab browses both applications and
files. Mac "popup windows and the switcher" -combination don't have
this problem, because you only browse through open _applications_
with the application switcher.
> As a side note, when we're talkin fullscreen mode here, it isn't
>actually fullscreen. It's just a window maximized to fit the screen. In
>fullscreen mode, you don't have the taskbar or anything. (Try going to
>the MS-DOS prompt and hit Alt-Enter so you'll see what I mean.)
Well yep, you're right, but in general I've meant "Application window
maximized" by "fullscreen"...
> Yeah but speed really isn't everything.
Speed is very important, especially if you do simutaneously work with
several applications that handle very different kinds of data. But
the most important thing in speed is, that a fast interface gives you
a feeling that the interface is not on your way all the time. It
becomes almost invisible.
I must say that I like the feeling that I rule the computer, when I
use Mac. Windows keeps telling me all the time, that it's in charge.
> I mean I don't like the hidden
>taskbar either, for a number of reasons, some that Tog brought up in his
>article, but I can see why some people would want to use it. One obvious
>case is when you have a "demo" machine somewhere, say a fair ("messut")
>or something that you want to show demos of your software or some nice
>PowerPoint slideshows (OK, PowerPoint can do the real fullscreen mode so
>it's not a problem there but anyway), and don't need to access anything,
>it's good to take the taskbar out of the way. Or if you have very small
>screen (640x480 or so).
Hmm... Maybe... I think the best solution would be (regardless of the
operating system) that you could put anything to fullscreen any time
easily. (Like in IE you have the fullscreen mode.)
> OK, I can admit that Mac takes better care of the desktop and it's more
>useful. (Many old Windows programs (eg. WS_FTP) don't even know what's a
>desktop, if they use nonstandard file dialog.)
But you _can_ drag files to WS_FTP window, btw...
> I meant: you don't *see* the program you want to activate always. And
>the Switcher/Finder/whatever (I am really getting confused which is
>which) on the top-right corner in older MacOSes at least is really
>strange, I haven't even to date really figured how it works (not that
>I'd had tried hard)..
You can't be serious... It's just an ordinary pulldown menu! On the
top-right corner of the screen. If you open it, you see the open
applications. If you want to change to another application, select it
from the menu. Try harder, you'll get it ;) ... There are three other
functions too: hide others, hide current program and show all.
> But it seems this is better taken care of on newer
>versions of the OS?
The new feature introduced in 8.5 was that you can tear off the menu
from the Apple menu bar. It becomes to a floating Application
Switcher.
> > points in Dock already: 1) It's transparent, so it can float above
>> windows and be very big without taking too much from the effective
>
> This would be nice on the Windows taskbar too, that it could be made a
>floating box..
Ooops... I talked about Dock, the upcoming feature of the upcoming
Mac OS X... You _can't_ make the current Application Switcher
transparent... ;)
> Uhh, the current PDAs (at least all I've seen, Palm and Psion machines
>and the Communicator) are really diffult to use. Even if they have a
>keyboard, the keyboard is too small. And don't even think about serious
>word processing (with automatic proofreading and thesaurus functions) on
>a PDA.. (yet, of course a few years from now it'll be everyday) PDAs are
>great for mobile use, but think of working 8 hours a day with one.. Uhh,
>I can see the ergonomy specialists getting all juicy about the idea. =)
>Talk about carpal tunnel syndrome, dorsal and cranial problems,
>epilepsy, weakened eyesight.. =) =) (Now isn't it cool to know this many
>medical terms in English..? =)
Hehe... Computers _are_ a disease... ;) Yep, yep, PDA's are very
clumsy right now... But I was thinking stripped-down computers in
general... Same kind of idea Larry Ellison was thinking about when he
talked about network-pc's.
BTW, did you know that the original idea of iMac was to beat Larry
Ellison on his own area? I think at some point of development the
original idea got lost (because iMacs aren't so stripped down Ellison
meant to be - in fact, there hardly is anything important
missing...), but ... anyway... (Just some Apple-trivia...) The ironic
detail is, that Steve Jobs and Ellison are friends... ;) Steve seems
to love to steal ideas from his friends...
> I don't think you can say that this or that interface would be the best
>for everyone. (That's why Win2k still has the Explorer, because we old
>skoolers are used to it, not because they want to confuse people.)
Nope, but I'm saying that the designer should know, which tested
version of his interface drafts is the best for the final release.
Seems that the original Windows 95 introduced some kind of public
beta of the final product (2000)...
> Well that's the way this is with Windows, too. The difference is that
>Explorer has the directory tree, My Computer hasn't and that My
>Comnputer by default (you can set that) opens a new window for each
>folder you open (like in Mac), Explorer doesn't since it works within
>one window all the time. (In older versions of Windows they also had
>other differences.) And their default view is different, but this can be
>changed easily.
Hmmmm... If I recall this right, my _original_ point was that the
Windows newbie 1) can't figure out the magic of moving files all by
himself and 2) if he asks help, he'll get different answers depending
on who he asks. Just opening the goddamn file system has different
approaches.
If a Mac newbie doesn't know how to move files around, and he asks
help, he'll get one kind of answer. He can universalize the
information further than the Windows newbie. It really is easier to
learn the UI logic of Mac than Windows'.
> > any big icons in the first place. Windows icons don't remember, where
>> they were visually located in a folder window after you close the
>> window. The only purpose in Windows for big icons is... well.. to
>
> Yes they do, if you disable the auto arrange feature.
Nope they don't, because I was meaning that....
> > in the windows.... You can decide that "this corner of the window is
>> for shit" - and color all those icons there brown. You see the
>
> OK, this is something Windows can't do.
... the Windows icons don't remember their locations after you've
closed the window. In Mac, they do. You can close the window, close
the computer, restart, open the same window and the icons are exactly
there where you left them. In any window.
> That is not the case if you use My Documents, which I think most new
>generation non-poweruser users do use. You don't have to remember very
>much..
Hmmm... the "Documents" folder has been on Mac default desktop since
System... hmmm... 7.5, I believe, which was released in 1994 or
something like that.
> And of course if you have a knowledge management tool like my
>beloved company's TJ Dynasty, you don't have to remember almost
>anything.. =) I just wonder, why no OS I'm aware of, has a proper
>inbuilt knowledge management (organizing and searching _all_ files on
>all or some mounted drives/networks by type, name, author, comment,
>generator, modifier, last access date, creation date, modification date,
>moving/copying date, size, source or a number of other criteria so that
>the user doesn't have to know anything about files or folders)?
Hmmm... Mac has Sherlock, Windows has quite powerful "Find"... But I
think BeOS's journaling file system is the thing you're looking for...
Sherlock does indexes of the files (you can set the interval, how
often it updates indexes), which makes "find by content" really fast.
> Well, if you are like me a DHTML/JavaScript "expert" =), you can value
>the active desktop, since it's not noninteractive. I think it is even
>possible to build drag&drop hotspots on the active desktop and stuff,
>but I'm not sure about that. Sadly the active desktop is rather buggy in
>my Win2k beta so I can't use it really.
Well, you can make drag'n'drop hotspots with Windows shortcuts
too.... So, this is nothing new... And it's a bit easier than coding
DHTML to get interactive hotspots on your desktop...
> Yeah, that can be done in Windows too, but the active desktop isn't
>just another webpage. If you know something about web programming, you
>can do lotsa things.
Naaah, it's just a gimmick. You've been bought by Microsoft marketing
rhetorics... ;)
>
>> There are a lot of better things for utilizing the desktop than
>> making it to some kind of interactive background picture... Another
>
> It doesn't stop you from utilizing the desktop otherwise.
... but it clutters the desktop more... Distracts you.
> If you have a constant connection, I don't think this is necessary. I
>mean, when the stuff comes from outside the firewall, it's a different
>thing, but within the local network I don't think the user needs to know
>whether he/she is accessing his/her own HDD or an outside resource.
... so when her/his computer crashes, shshe won't know, did heshshe
lose all his documents or not?
> Well, the Windows UI Guidelines explicitly forbid programs to include
>any shortcuts to documentation or web pages to the start menu. It's sad
>that developers don't follow them.
Only Microsoft seems to follow their own guidelines...
>You can
>make the Start menu work pretty much like the Apple menu by moving menu
>items from the Programs folder to top level of Start menu if you want.
Yes, I know, because I do it every time I use Windows. But again,
it's not as fast and not as clear as in Mac... (it took me a long
time to notice that right-clicking the Start-button gets you into the
Start-menu... This time I have to admit that it was somewhat logical,
though...)
The most annoying thing is that programs tend to trash up the Start
menu automatically... I don't have any option to forbid them in the
installation process... I have to clean up the menu myself... So this
"autoclean" feature you talked about, is just another "fixing a hole
because the rain is getting in" -situation: If someone on the
Windows-side would've followed the UI guidelines, this wouldn't
happened...
>If you remove
>programs like they should be removed, the Add/Remove program panel (or
>using a separate uninstaller),
Ha! This is another illogicalness in Windows GUI. In Mac, you add
programs by dragging them to your hard disk. You remove them by
dragging them to trash. The same logic as with any other file
objects. Although you used installer to add a program, you can still
remove the program by trashing its folder.
In Windows, there's a _separate_ program (with different interface
than the file system) for removing applications (= executable files).
Why? Because you didn't know where they were put in the first place.
Because only half of the program is inside its own folder - the other
half is inside Windows folder. You _can't_ remove most of the
programs by yourself, because you should know, which "DJERTY32.DLL"
-files to trash. (... and I've never understood, why those dll's
don't ever use long filenames to make it a bit easier to get rid of
unwanted dll's... Look inside "extensions" folder in Mac's System
folder and you know what I mean...)
An average Mac user knows where the program is on his/her hard disk,
knows the difference between alias and the real thing and knows how
to remove programs - because the operation follows the same logic as
any other file management operation.
This is a good example, actually, about Mac UI logic consistency.
There's a lot bigger hierarchial difference in Windows "average
users" and "power users" than in Mac. Windows average users can't do
anything, while power users can do everything. The average Mac user
can handle installations, removing programs, moving files around,
organizing Apple menu, etc... because the user interface is so
logical. You don't have to go for courses to learn how to manage
files.
> Well why should one be able to tell the difference?
What??? Because if you trash the shortcut, you won't get rid of the
program. Because if you move the target, the shortcut gets broken
(unlike in Mac, where you can rename and move the real file very
freely without breaking the connection to the alias)... Because it's
important to know, what's the difference. Because you can do all
kinds of things with aliases. Is it some kind of top secret
information in Windows or what?
BTW, the reason why Mac aliases are so clever is because of file
ID's. Every file has an ID number. So, if you move the target of the
alias, it doesn't matter because the ID remains the same. You can
rename the target too... The ID's are disk-specific, though, so if
you move the target to _another_ _disk_, the alias will get broken.
Unlike in Windows, Mac doesn't even try to find the target for you
(which on the other hand never really works in Windows), but you can
fix the alias by showing, where you moved the target (like in Windows
after you've stopped the automatic search).
> there are few reasons why the user should
>concern him/herself with shortcuts and actual files.
I disagree. One should know that mighty secret behind them without
the fear of becoming a nerd immediately. Like Mac average users do.
> Actually, I for one
>think that there should be no diffence: every icon should be equal.
>Sadly, I think that this is not the case with any common OS..
Well, if Windows users had better grip on the file system in the
first place, this would not be an issue at all... The average users
would learn the idea of shortcuts...
> > I hope I don't have to point out, which one of these menus is
>faster to use...
>
> I don't think this is an issue, since one doesn't launch new programs
>so often..
It represents the Windows "fixing the holes" problems.... And your
argument is not the answer to my argument... You're just reasoning
the broken solution. "It doesn't have to work, because you don't need
it"... Bollocks. Seems that you don't even want the UI to be made
well... In Mac, every GUI detail is polished before dumping the stuff
to market...
>
>> 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.
>
> You can make a shortcut to the Control Panel in Windows to the top
>level of the Start menu if you insist. And on W2K you can access the
>Control Panel by right-clicking the taskbar and selecting from there.
Well, it's nice to notice that it took only five years to implement
this basic Mac functionality to Windows (somehow)... But you still
can't get to the sublevels of the Start menu simply by selecting the
sublevel - which is faster, more convenient and more elegant than
surfing around hard disk.
> Well OK, this is the way it should be. I don't know how Win2000 handles
>this since one doesn't often need to move program files and I rarely
>make shortcuts for documents.
... because Windows doesn't use shortcuts as effectively as Mac does
aliases. You can do many kinds of things with aliases. An example: I
have two sound editing programs on this Mac. Both are compatible with
the same sound effect plugin package. Instead of putting the same
plugin package into each others plugins-folder, I've put aliases to
the real plugin there, which saves disk space.
And (did I mention this already?) ... You can put an alias to your
hard disk into Apple menu. After that, you'll see the whole folder
hierarchy of your hard disk directly from Apple menu... if you like
it that way... (... and you can go to any folder directly from Apple
menu simply by selecting a sub-level...)
> But in Windows 2000 it's much easier. It's one very obvious icon on the
>taskbar. Click there and off you go.
... fixing a hole, again... My main argument "why wasn't it made well
in the first place?" remains the same... After five years of public
beta testing they're finally getting to the Mac-functionality
level... But I'm glad that they are... Honest.
>
>> 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".
>
> Well I don't think it goes quite that way, but I can see your point. It
>is difficult to find, admitted.
Well, it _goes_ that way. At least in
pre-something-about-98-Windowses (and remember that a vast majority
of those "average users" you keep talking about, still use that
version of Windows 95 they released in 1995. You can't bypass my
every argument just by replying "it's fixed in 2000"). I think I've
seen that "show desktop" button you mentioned... It comes with some
IE package... But if they'd thought the UI logic better in the
beginning, it would've taken this long...
> I don't know, but if I was Apple, I'd have a policy of forbidding
>developers from using the apple logo on their product if their UIs don't
>comply with Apple's standards.
That's not such a problem on Mac-side...
> > > > 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
>
> Well, it isn't a problem with Windows, it's a problem with Windows
>software.
... so, you'll meet a problem. You can't make the problem disappear
by changing its name. And to use your own argument, "Why should I've
be interested, what's the originator of the problem?". I see a
problem, I'd like it to be fixed. In one way or another.
> Well, you can access it also from IE for example (which is the most
>obvious place where you find out you need to alter the settings). And I
>don't think the deep nesting is such a problem with rarely used items
>*if* the path you need to follow is logical. To one who even knows what
>the TCP/IP is, I don't think you're example isn't so bad. I think it's
>rather logical when you get accustomed to the Windows control panel.
There are wide variety of interface elements to surf through... There
are them all, actually: A Window, a sub-page, a button, a list... Bad
design. Like a pizza made from UI elements. And again the same thing:
There's no need to make a huge difference between average users and
power users, if the UI logic is made well.
> I mean creating your own shortcuts in places where you want and so on.
>Few average users do this.
... in Windows.
> But it is different. If developers follow Windows UI guidelines, they
>make all programs fully keyboard accessible. This means, for one thing,
>that all items in a dialog box should be keyboard accessible. In Win2k
>you can effectively make your own kbd shortcuts to almost anywhere.
Yep, I made a keyboard shortcut for Pegasus in Windows. After that,
one essential PageMaker keyboard shortcut stopped working. This was
in Win95.
> But one thing Windows (NT/2000) can do better, I think, is setting the
>user priviledges and file sharing per file or per folder basis. At least
>the older MacOS's are terrible with network and multi-user things, dunno
>about the new ones..
Yeah, yeah, there are a couple of technical areas Windows beats
Mac... They say that Windows multitasking is poor, but in my
experience it's better than Mac's. Even Win98 doesn't crash as often
as Mac. Of course, it depends... PC's always have problems caused by
the zillion different hardware manufactorers. Macs don't have these
kind of problems, but the OS itself isn't stable enough.
Then again UNIX user priviledges system is far more advanced than in
Mac _and_ in Windows... not to mention networking and multi-user
things. And they're standard-savvy.
And the multiple users feature in current Mac is really limited, but
at least it _is_ there... ;) And you can put your own picture to the
login screen, next to your name... That's of course nice and far more
important than decent user priviledges... ;)
This is another thing that will be fixed by OS X. Because it's
UNIX-based, user privililedges will start to work in UNIX-way... I
don't understand why Apple even put this half-functional "Multiple
Users" thing to current OS... Very microsoftish to release half-ready
products...
BTW, beginning from the next year, there will be only two kinds of
operating systems on the mass markets: different UNIX-flavors and
Windows... _All_ the competitors to Windows have UNIX somewhere under
the hood... Even BeOS had UNIX as its inspirer, although it's not
based on UNIX...
--
---> Jarmo Lundgren
Secretary for Boredom
Cyber Yugoslavia
http://www.juga.com/idcard.asp?id=12499
