Could this have to do anything with the fact that you do can use Windows
*without* touching the mouse and in a consistent way across
applications? I know, the mouse is a lot easier to learn and use than
the hundreds of keypress sequences a modern system can have, but I also
can say for sure that advanced users in Windows can spend a whole
session without touching the mouse, and that most times (like when
you're using a word processor) it's a lot faster to just use the
keyboard than to spend all your time moving your right hand between the
keyboard and the mouse. That is the feature I miss the most on MacOS:
the ability to switch to another application, select a menu command,
fill in a dialog box (possibly with nested dialogs) and press the OK
button without leaving your hands from the keyboard. On Windows, I'm
able of saving all open documents and orderly closing the system if the
mouse breaks up in the middle of a session - try to do that in classic
Mac OS.
Please don't confuse "user interface" (UI) with "graphical user
interface" (GUI). The latter is a subset of the former. You can build a
highly coherent and easy to use system (with a good "user interface")
using only a keyboard and a text display. Many Apple II applications
(the original AppleWorks from 1984 or the ProDOS System Utilities come
to mind) and some DOS-based PC software manage to do that quite well.
The "jerking pointer" of Windows isn't a problem of the OS itself but of
the cheaper-than-cheap mice people often buy with their PCs. I currently
use an optical mouse with my Windows machine, and can say for sure that
I haven't ever user a more precise pointing device. AFAIK, both Windows
and Macintosh pointers are as precise as the mouse/trackball that is
connected to the computer.
Oh, and as Peter said, I'm not saying Windows is better than Macintosh.
Even if Microsoft has made it better over time (most times taking ideas
from the Mac, of course, but also throwing out the highly unstable
Windows 9x kernel and migrating to the more stable NT kernel), I still
consider the Mac to be more than one steps ahead of Windows. But if in
one point Windows is better than the Mac, well, why not say it? If we
can't be cryticall with our system, we will end looking as intolerant
adepts to some strange sect :-P .
Greetings,
Antonio Rodríguez (Grijan)
<ftp://grijan.cjb.net:21000/>
[EMAIL PROTECTED] escribió:
OK. I'm just confused then. If the mouse and pointer don't constitute user
interface then we have a semantics problem. What do you mean by "User
Interface"? You talk about the keyboard, but if there was ONE thing I always
thought the Mac did properly, it was to incorporate consistent keyboard
commands that worked intuitively in every application that followed Apple's
guidelines (after all they came built into the ROM toolbox) across the board
from 1984 on -- I am constantly amazed that key commands I use under System
1.0 work the same under OSX. For my money the Mac keyboard always traveled
first class. Windows on OTOH was always a confusing jumble of right and left
mouse clicks, CTRL, ALT, SHIFT, CMND, FUNCTION and letter key combos that
changed from application to application (and even WITHIN the application!).
That sounds more like 3rd class steerage treatment to me. And I never
accused you of saying it was desirable. But I am curious to know
specifically why you consider the Mac interface treats the keyboard less
than first-class compared to Windows 3.1, if no other differences.
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