On Nov 10, 2010, at 9:39 PM, Cédric Beust ♔ wrote: > > > On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 9:02 PM, Steve <[email protected]> wrote: > On Nov 11, 2:18 pm, Cédric Beust ♔ <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > That's a myth. If you look back over the past fifteen years, you will see > > that Windows has innovated in the GUI department more than any other OS, > > including Mac OS. > > > > Examples? > > > > I thought the Windows 95 "Start" button was pretty innovative too and widely > copied (except by Mac OS. Maybe Microsoft has a patent on that one?).
I'm going to have to declare shenanigans on this. The Start menu was an attempt by MS to add a global menu bar to their UI, something the Mac has had since 1982, when it was the Lisa. And probably on some earlier Xerox OSes as well. Now one thing I will say, I actually think menu bars per window is a good UI feature. I like having a global menu bar, but it would be nice on the Mac to also have menu items that pertain to a particular window located spatially close to the window. I'm usually working with multiple monitors, and one is a 33", and it gets very tedious to have to mouse all the way over to the menu bar. Also on the subject of menus, MS was the first UI that had context-sensitive menus (pop up menus). I remember when Apple's OS (7 or 8 I think) did not have them, and I even remember The Steve making fun of them, saying you only need one button on your mouse. Then soon after that, the "control-click" was born on the Mac, as a way to "right-click" without a second mouse button. So I'll give MS credit for that very useful innovation. > I have quite a few other examples in mind but I'll give you just one more > innovation, which I think is absolutely revolutionary: the Ribbon. > > If you have no idea what it is, Jensen Harris wrote an entire series > explaining in details how they designed it, all the usability studies they > did, how they went, the mistakes they made, etc... Here is one his many posts > on the subject. I guarantee that you'll end up respecting Microsoft's > innovations a lot more after reading the entire series. > Well, I don't know where this first was used, but I do know a ribbon-like feature has been in several Adobe products (Flash for one) for quite some time - I know before MS came out with theirs. So as far as I know, credit should go to Adobe, or whoever they copied it from, if they didn't originate it. > I can think of five or more right innovations just off the top of my head, > but I'll stop here for now. I just love this stuff and I think Microsoft > deserves a lot more credit than they are usually given in the area of > innovations. > > -- > Cédric -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
