Ric's post strikes a chord with me. One of the great things about j602 was a strong sense of commonality across platforms; promising that one set of instructions would do for all. We now have GTK, with its promise of cross-platform commonality... (and common sets of instructions? Well... er...)
And I half-agree with Bill: what's so precious about the Apple Human Interface Guidelines that we should defer to them? If any Human Interface guidelines are to apply, surely it should be GTK's, not the Mac's? (GTK's guidelines? -- well, '~addons/docs/gtk/gtk/GtkDialog.html' makes mention of GNOME Human Interface Guidelines ... but the link is broken.) And yet... and yet... The Mac ploughs its own furrow anyway, because all Win: Ctrl+X, Ctr+C, Ctrl+V, ... automatically become ⌘X, ⌘C, ⌘V, ... on the Mac, and that seems to be the rule both in JWD and JGTK. Menu: Studio > Labs becomes Menu: Help > Studio > Labs on the Mac -- so that's different already. And "Advance [Lab]" was ⌘J in j602/Mac. If it was right back then, why is it wrong now? (Mind you, nothing wrong with offering both ^J and ⌘J as synonyms -- ^ being Mac-shorthand for Ctrl.) The jconsole (JGTK) menu line-up shows not a single example of ^<letter>. Nor does M$Word 2004 for the Mac: I was mistaken, I thought it did. So ⌘ reigns supreme. Still. A Mac version is inevitably going to be judged from a Mac viewpoint (and reviewed as such). Not from a Unix one, even if you habitually use your Mac as a Unix box. And not from a GTK one, except in some closed GTK community which I don't know about. And someone writing an introductory piece about J701/Mac is surely going to talk about the Labs? Pity to score 0 for Mac-ness on the very first page. BTW: I admit I hesitated over writing "GTK afficionado", but it's a neutral term in Brit-English: I didn't want to wave a red rag by saying GTK jocks, fanatics, nazis, freaks, loonies, etc. ;-) ...But can a bunch of people tin-eared enough to call their offering "The GIMP Toolkit" have any inkling of Human Factors, let alone Guidelines?! On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 2:37 AM, Ric Sherlock <[email protected]> wrote: > If it's going to be a menu item in Mac but not in Windows or Linux > versions then that creates even more user interface diversity, > fragmenting our small community even more. > > My preference would be for a menu item in all Gtk versions, failing > that in none. > > > On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 3:08 PM, bill lam <[email protected]> wrote: >> I'm not a mac afficionados and not even a mac user to comprehend why this >> is a big deal or that apple interface guideline should be regarded as a >> doctrine. (_no_ depreciation intended here.) Since you already worked out a >> simple way to make it conform to that guideline, an option would be >> to incorporate into mainline with additional conditional code making it >> only relevant in mac, such as >> if. UNAME-:'Darwin' do. >> create_menu_sep con >> con ccmenu 'runadvancelab' >> end. >> >> otherwise mac afficionados would need to patch every time after updating >> gtkide from pacman. >> >> btw, afficionados - sounds like esperanto? >> >> @Chris, what will be your opinion? >> >> Втр, 22 Фев 2011, Ian Clark писал(а): >>> > I realize that your email was a rant, meant to express frustration and >>> > not necessarily logic or facts, >>> >>> Haha. >>> >>> ...But there were a *few* facts lurking in my rant, plus a smidgeon of >>> logic. >>> So go on, fault me on one or the other. >>> >>> > the CTRL key predated both Windows and Mac OSes by quite some time. >>> >>> Oh yes... it predates computers. >>> >>> I remember it on the old tty. It had one use and one use only: to >>> enter a "control" char: NUL, SOH, STX, ETX,... >>> which it did by grounding a line or two, if memory serves. >>> >>> The original Mac "toaster" did not have a Control key. See: >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_Macintosh_Plus_Keyboard.jpg >>> (...that's the Option key you see next to the Command key.) >>> That was deliberate: to enforce the Mac gui paradigm. >>> >>> A lost cause, if ever there was one. >>> (@Apple: do you want to sell your machines, or don't you?) >>> >>> Excellent histories of the Command and Control keys on modern >>> computers can be found at: >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_Key >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_key >>> >>> But the keyboard on my Macintosh II (which I bought to replace my Mac >>> 512k, which quite literally toasted itself -- the power-unit was >>> absurdly underpowered) certainly did have a Control key. By then the >>> Mac had a good repertoire of apps, and M$ was in open conflict with >>> Apple over "look 'n' feel". >>> >>> Since then the usage of Command and Control keys, along with all >>> modifiers, has become capricious. >>> (...Oh I know developers won't say that: they'll say their usage >>> follows Iron Rules of Pure Logic -- to hell with whatever anyone else >>> does.) >>> >>> But this caprice has not been to the benefit of novice users. >>> ...If there still are any. >>> ...Who matter. >>> >>> > As Chris B. already replied, any of us, individually or collectively, can >>> > customize JHS as we like... >>> >>> (I'll assume you meant JGTK...) >>> >>> Oh yes. J602 and J701 are beatifully soft apps. The code which governs >>> the JGTK menus is in '~addons/ide/gtk/gtk.ijs' -which you can readily >>> find by Spotlighting the text of a menu item, such as: Run Project >>> >>> That done, a four-year old could hack it, to come up with what I offer >>> as my suggestion: >>> http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Interfaces/GTK/AdvanceLabMac >>> >>> ...but all this is a long way from the pure land of novice support. >>> >>> That said, why *should* JGTK make any concession to the novice? As >>> Chris implies, its primary audience is developers wishing to employ >>> GTK in their product. Not novices. Ergo the availability of labs on >>> JGTK is just a bonus. >>> >>> I said "I don't know if anyone's listening". But I could have said it >>> kinder. Or it could have been thrown right back at me... Why *should* >>> anyone be listening? JGTK is an interface on the Mac for GTK >>> afficionados. That's its central audience. It need have no special >>> appeal to Mr Average Mac User coming new to J. >>> >>> (As indeed it doesn't.) >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:43 AM, Alan K. Stebbens <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >> < Rant> ... >>> >> Ctrl in Windows is (usually) the counterpart of Cmnd (⌘) on the Mac. >>> >> But nowadays Mac keyboards offer a Ctrl key also, as a concession to >>> >> ex-Windows customers (...growing) -- particularly users of M$Word, >>> > >>> > Ian, >>> > >>> > I realize that your email was a rant, meant to express frustration and >>> > not necessarily logic or facts, but I also feel the need to set the >>> > record straight: in that the CTRL key predated both Windows and Mac OSes >>> > by quite some time. >>> > >>> > For example, running WordPerfect on a CP/M system required a fairly >>> > strong left "pinky" because most of the editing was done with the CTRL >>> > key being pressed semi-contantly. >>> > >>> > Furthermore, even while MS-DOS was the primary OS for large, clunky >>> > desktops, the CTRL key was very much in use on BSD 4.2 Unix at the very >>> > least for line editing (e.g., CTRL-C, CTRL-U, CTRL-\, CTRL-Z), and was >>> > widely available at most colleges and universities. >>> > >>> > IMHO, the Mac OS X support of the CTRL key is (was) not a concession to >>> > Windows, but rather a simple recognition the Terminal app users on Mac OS >>> > X (which is really a Unix system), as well as the users of the larger >>> > non-Mac OS world, which increasingly included other Unix variants as well >>> > as Windows systems absolutely require the CTRL key, at the very least for >>> > command line editing. >>> > >>> >> which has been re-ported to the Mac with little or no understanding of >>> >> novice needs. There's no good reason for a novice ever to buy M$Word: >>> >> the kludge is aimed at an existing audience. >>> > >>> > I'm no MS fanboy, but you should know that 2011 MSWord is actually a >>> > decent Mac app port. The 2004 MSWord was .. okay ..; the 2008 MSWord was >>> > terrible. >>> > >>> >> But on the Mac: Ctrl+J to advance a Lab is Ctrl+J in JGTK not ⌘J ...it >>> >> appears to be the sole exception to the "rule" Ctrl+ --> ⌘ . >>> > >>> > As Chris B. already replied, any of us, individually or collectively, can >>> > customize JHS as we like. However, I do believe that there is a benefit >>> > to having the "out of box" experience be as intuitive as possible. >>> > >>> > As Joey said in a later email, CTRL-J to advance a Lab seems perfectly >>> > fine to me, and somewhat mnemonic. >>> > >>> >> I'd have pointed this out before but I don't know if anyone's >>> >> listening. (How many Mac users are there on this list? Four?) >>> >> </ Rant > >>> > >>> > Count++ me as a Mac user too. Since serial number 300 of the original >>> > Mac line. But, I was also chained to a Windows XP laptop for 6 years, as >>> > part of long visit with Dante in the Inferno. >>> > >>> > -- >>> > Alan >>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> >> -- >> regards, >> ==================================================== >> GPG key 1024D/4434BAB3 2008-08-24 >> gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 4434BAB3 >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
