At 03:33 AM 3/2/05 +0000, Simon Troup wrote: >Professional applications don't need multiple choices of >icons types, or different desktop choices. One simple, >well designed set of icons would suffice. The whole rosewood >desktop and vellum paper idea borrowed from sibelius is totally >unnecessary and just bloats the app. I think it actually 'cheapens' >the application. You don't see options like these in Photoshop >or ProTools. [...] >Customising should be about ergonomics, not style.
I agree about the kind of 'look' or skinning issues, and think Sibelius looks hokey (I have the version 3 demo). For me, the interface becomes very personal. 10+ hours per day has made me very productive in my Windows environment. But programs such as Photoshop slow me down with their different implementation of context menus, floating-only toolbars, etc., so most of my work is done in the compliant Paint Shop Pro until I actually need Photoshop for something. My first Finale was 2.2, which was so un-Windows-like that I would have dumped it had Finale not been the only game in town back then. There are many interface improvements that could be made to Finale, but I come at it with a Windows-only perspective, and am efficient using its mouse actions and especially standard keystrokes. I know F5 will refresh my screen (but Finale is CTL-D), CTL-TAB will switch between a program's child windows (okay in Finale), ALT-TAB between programs, etc. I know Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, and the arrows will work as advertised. (One of the worst for me is PageMaker's usurpation for other commands of the longstanding toggles of italic, underscore and bold CTL-I, U, B. I've wrecked many a document because I type along without looking at the screen!) Distractions make me crazy, so only the current application appears on my desktop, maximized with child windows also maximized, and border lines reduced to zero. There's no "edge clutter", as my Windows taskbar auto-hides. The colors of background and active & inactive window bars, the scrollbar widths, font sizes, etc., are all set for my eyes and attention. Icons are reduced in size, or where they cannot be reduced (as in some browsers), eliminated in favor of text. (Some Adobe products ignore the font size I have chosen for user interface elements as well as the open-maximized setting.) I have no idea if most users heavily personalize their workspace while depending on the operating system's common actions. I do. Where a program deviates from the environment's repertoire of behaviors while refusing to respect the environment's customizations, it very much gets in my way. Alas, where a program attempts the virtuous goal of cross-platform compatibility, it tends to break the standard expectations and slows me down. My same frustration, though, is visible in the eyes of Mac users or even my Linux-devotee stepson when they try to operate my machine, with its Dennis-centric interface, left-handed trackball, right-handed tablet, and two monitors. But my hands fly. :) Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
