On 1/6/06, David W. Fenton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 6 Jan 2006 at 9:19, Brad Beyenhof wrote: > > [T]he problem with doing a UI > > overhaul is that certain people are already used to the "musically > > illogical" placement of features.. > > To me, [this] looks like a commitment to the status quo, or mere > stubbornness, or just wanting to argue.
I am in no way just "wanting to argue." Please read my entire message, and reply to it as a whole, rather than applying knee-jerk reactions to individual statements. I have agreed with Dennis that such a regrouping is a very good idea, but merely pointing out that it could create a nightmare for customer support. > The assumption that *adding* > a new approach always entails completely removing the old method is > completely unwarranted. So you want to have Finale include incredibly bloated menus, with multiple ways to get to each of its plethora of features? > > . . . we noticed the problem when "Show > > Active Layer Only" changed menus from from View to Options. > > This is a completely different type of issue. No, it's not. I'm talking merely about the support ramifications for MakeMusic! when features' discovery paths get changed. > And it seems to me that there oughtn't be any reason not to have such > a menu choice in both locations. But if you follow that logic to its conclusion, you'll put discovery paths to each dialog in multiple locations that might seem equally useful. With every feature accessible from multiple places, there will be so many choices that *nothing* will be easy to find! > > If features were totally rearranged, . . . . > > Who has proposed that? I certainly haven't. Just giving an example of a possible scenario. > > . . . there would be no end of support > > requests from people who just use a few features, and know where they > > are, but don't know the rest of the program that well. Even if these > > changes made all the sense in the world, they could and would be > > terribly confusing to users of earlier versions. > > If MakeMusic ported Finale to Linux, would they still support > Windows? I mean, some Windows users wouldn't find it easy switching > to Linux, so they need to be accomodated somehow!!!!! > > How stupid does *that* sound? Pretty darn stupid. Because there is nothing in your hypothetical scenario that even approaches the situation I'm describing. > > I'm not saying that there should be no search for a way to make all > > those menus and dialogs more independently discoverable, but that any > > such venture should be undertaken with a great deal of thought and > > consideration for its ramifications. > > Well, I'm sure Dennis was proposing that such a revision be done in > the most stupid and confusing way possible. That's certainly *my* > thinking on the subject. I'm not in any way trying to imply that anybody so far has made any improper judgments or confusing suggestions. I'm merely pointing out the potential ramifications of feature discovery juggling. Don't assume that things people say are automatically atupid, David. Try to figure out where posters are coming from before making such assumptions and totally lambasting a point that hasn't even been made. -- Brad Beyenhof Real-time Finale discussion: http://www.finaleirc.com my blog: http://augmentedfourth.blogspot.com Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. ~ Igor Stravinsky _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
