WOW. I might have left it at that, but I'll reply in-line all the same, because I'm a windbag and love my own voice, or something like that...
On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 11:55 PM, Michael_google gmail_Gersten < [email protected]> wrote: The real problem is: While humans don't do two tasks at once well, > using two or more tools at once for a single task is something we're > really good at. And a "Single-App" system prevents that. > MANY, MANY beginners use their computers like this. What we really don't do well as humans is try to categorize an entire group of people, mostly, because you can't. Not everyone works like you. For every guy like you or me, there's 10 people who maximize every app. When they need another app, they don't even use their respective OS'es task switcher, they minimize, then maximize the next app. For every 10 of those people, there's 1 or 2 more that QUIT the app each time, because they don't know better. Those people work better on Macs, sometimes, since most apps don't quit when you close a document window, so the next time they "open the app", it opens really quick, having never really closed. Some Windows MDI apps kinda work that way too, which is why a lot of these people always have MS Word open, not knowing it, for example. NOBODY on this list has suggested a single app, no windows system is going to be the only choice for Macs. It is going to remain so for the iPad, and it's going to be an option for Macs. Possibly one day even the default option that you'll have to flip off every time you buy a new system. > save? Why we still use a hierarchical file system today instead of a > RDBM-and-tag based file system? Why there is no support for hard links > in either MW or AA GUI systems -- and the aliasing system in either > I used to train nurses on an email system (Zimbra) that supports "tagging" as an option alongside folder organization. The reason is, quite simply, that tags in LIEU of folders is not for everybody. And tags alongside folders is very hard for people to understand, unless they are quite competent in computers. It took a lot of practice, and revision of my materials to get it to the point where I could get that 1 person out of 25 to say "wow, I love that" without making the other 24 say "huh? Can you repeat that again, slower this time?" I don't even tag photos in Aperture, I just organize them by event, which is akin to saying "I throw all my crap in folders". You expect your Aunt to tag? That's why to the common user bookmarks trump delicious but both are trumped by just typing in the google bar. That's why Chrome merged web search and the URL bar, since they know that most people really don't get the difference. You're on a platform (mac) that caters to you, with lots of advanced functionality. But it also specializes in, and targets in particular people who either don't know much about computers, or are an absolute WIZARD in Photoshop, Quark, Indesign, whatever... but still don't know much about file systems. You can hope and ask they keep catering to you, but not without understanding that you're just one of a relatively small number of advanced users on this platform. You're going to see things like this more and more as Apple realizes higher market share... without increasing user frustration. > does not permit the reverse path lookup? Why the concept of "One file > in multiple locations" doesn't exist anywhere? Why neither one truly > has support for "Show the relevant folder" operation for an icon in > every case? Why we see this silly assumption (again, both systems) > that if you are doing an operation on a graphical file, you are > interested in every graphical file in the same directory (But oddly, > not assumed true for any other type of file)? Why you assume that some > file types are in a separate part of the file system (for example, "My > Pictures") when those files may be associated with something else > (most computer people with experience that I know of organize by > project or subject, not by file type -- yet not one user interface is > based around directories of projects)? > You work too hard for your files. I know where mine are, or use Spotlight. I think doing everything you ask is kinda neat, but would just add to much complexity to the UI. > Gestures, Right clicks, versus old school (Windows 2 and 3) menu bars: > With old school menu bars, you knew where everything was. You might > have to search for them. You might need for things to be organized > well. But you could find them. > Right clicks? Seriously, context-sensitive menus (which don't remove ANYTHING from the menubar) is a bad design? Not only is what you need often RIGHT THERE, you rarely have to move the mouse to get to it. Seriously, the one-button mouse was NEVER a good idea. > Now? Nowadays you need to right click on everything to try to find > what's valid here and not there; you have to hope that you didn't miss > something that the program considered an object; you have to deal with > right-click blockers; you have to learn gestures that often are not > intuitive, and often different in every program (even today, sometimes > two fingers and drag on the mousepad will move a window, and sometimes > it will zoom, and this is without official gesture support. > Again, ranting aside, gestures, when done right, really cannot be argued. In the last 2 days, literally, I saw my 4 year old continue to show perfect mastery of an iPad, swiping left and right to find her apps, tapping to open, and interacting with apps. Nobody ever taught her, and she certainly can't read. I also saw my 91 year old grandmother master pinch and zoom on photos. This is the same woman who has wanted to use a computer for decades, but cannot learn how. > One window per screen per app? Gaack. > To each their own. Why can't others have it? > Seriously: At some point in the past, it was possible to say that the > window you clicked in wasn't the front window -- you could have > something in front of you while you were working elsewhere. You know > -- back when you had manual typewriters, your eyes were on a paper, > and your hands just typed where you knew the keys were, without having > to look at the typewriter? > I still know where the keys are, and if I'm in a word processor, or have opened a new message in Mail.app, I do not need to look around much. I just type. Apple has a feature on their notebooks that ignores the touchpad while you are actively typing, so I don't even worry about accidentally brushing up against that. But, this is a great case for a single app per screen, since I notice many, many novices struggle with this, for example: typing in a web form whose field isn't highlighted, or trying to type in Word, but it wasn't the in focus window because they accidentally clicked on a sliver of the desktop still visible. This solves the latter for people who aren't going to learn better. > Why not have Mail (as an example) organized with a message display > window, separate from the subject list window? Why do I have to > sub-divide a window? > Aren't there clients that do that? And can't you disable the preview window and/or double click on messages to open them in a separate window? I know that's not 100% what you are asking for, but it's a lot of it. And there are a lot of mail clients. > Subdividing a window is equivalent to working with multiple > non-overlapping windows in a fixed group arrangement, without letting > the end-user modify the group arrangement. That's bad. > The difference between Mail.app's three panes and when I used to arrange things in Final Cut Pro is why. Subdividing works best for users, even me sometimes. > Let the user specify a bunch of windows to treat as a group. > Which users? My mom? Your uncle? > Let the user arrange them as they want. > They won't. They'll leave them where they lay and click around haplessly trying to focus the right one, or just go back to closing things to open others. > Have a "Fix it!" panic button for when the arrangement is messed up. > And let the "group of windows" span more than one application. > Hi, we're often broken, so we offer a Fix button. I think that portrays an interesting message, for sure. > Look at Spaces -- I can specify that I want the windows of an > application to be here, or there, but what I want is to specify the > windows that make up a functional group over multiple apps. > A fair request. It's an app that's admittedly a bit more advanced then say Dashboard, so having a few more power features in it wouldn't likely confuse most users who never turned it on, unlike say adding gobs and gobs of stuff to the Finder. Look at Microsoft's "Group related windows" -- that just means "Group > by app, not by function/project" > Microsoft can solve their own problems on their own list, I suppose. I snipped a bit of your post, since my response is starting to get a bit long. What's apple's apparent solution? > One window per app, one window per screen. One window to rule them > all, and in the darkness, bind them. > It's a feature! Our minivan has a manumatic function that's very slow to shift, won't go outside certain preset parameters or it will shift on it's own to protect your engine, makes the car accelerate slower, since the shifts are always lagging, and really doesn't turn my Hyundai into a Porsche. Some like it, no doubt, it makes them feel like they are driving manual, I guess. Hyundai hasn't forced it onto the consumer as the only way to drive, but it's sitting right there to engage you if you think your car sounds a tad cooler in 3rd gear at a high RPM than at 5th gear at a normal one. > > The iOS model is PERFECT for people like that. No folders, but their > content is organized. Where are your iWork files? In iWork. Where are you > books? In iBooks (or based on sales hints from publishers, probably in the > Kindle app, but I digress). Where are your PDFs? In GoodReader. > > ICK! So if I'm doing a review on a house, I'll have pictures, an > inspector's report, a database or spreadsheet, etc., and they'll all > be in separate locations? > No, you wouldn't. You would be using a different metaphor, and a different app altogether. Look, Microsoft Office isn't going to pop up tomorrow in the App Store, without support for windows, and no way to browse the file system. You'll find more things like: FileMaker on the shelf at an Apple retail store, and Bento in the app store. You might even find an iWork Lite type deal in the app store. You'll find tons of games, and cute little weather this, youtube that type apps. It's a great distribution method for a Hulu Plus app, it's a lousy way to distribute AutoCad, where people probably want a box and a manual. > Spotlight totally enables anyone to skip folder organization. Spotlight STINKS. > Works great for me. Especially for app launching. And for finding an email, where I didn't get to choose a "file name", but kinda remember what was in the message, although it was 4 months ago and I don't know where it is. > Sorry, it does. "find" on the command line has more power, and if it > could/would use the indexes, I'd be happy. > There are third party GUI interfaces that provide much better searching, for advanced users. There's also a command line interface (mdfind I believe) with more functionality. Still, the common user would be scared away from using Spotlight if all that stuff was to smack them in the face the first click on that hourglass icon. Even the finder window's search has more option than that top right icon, which is there for simplistic searches by simplistic users. > Heck, spotlight would be better if I *** could search inside of bundle > directories with it ***, but I can't, and that makes it worthless. It > would be better if I could toss it at a subset of the files on my > system, but I can't -- even using a finder window (smart folder, or > whatever Apple calls it), I generally have a choice of the whole > computer, or what Finder thinks is where I want to look, with no way > to correct where to actually look. > Again, there probably are ways to do this, outside of the normal click on the icon method, but I'm not sure that very many people often need to search like that. They can barely spell bundle, but certainly don't know (nor should they) what a bundle is. > And Spotlight is only good if I know what I'm looking for. I have to > And my oven is only good at cooking if I put something in it and turn it on. You lost me here, it should find things you don't know you need? That'd be creepy. > > They aren't removing any of those features from 10.7. They are just > allowing for apps to eschew that. No, no, no, no, NOOO. > No, seriously. People have the betas. That's exactly how it works. > Lets go back and learn from the unix world for a moment. Remember how > X windows was supposed to provide all the best features of a windowing > system by not forcing any single design on you? You could organize > things however you wanted. > Yes, and to date it's worked. At the expense of having any hopes for a meaningful share of the desktop marketplace. > Except that what you really wanted turned out to be to let the end > user customize things for the end user. Instead, every program used a > different set of graphical widgets, and no two programs worked alike. > The end user could not make a consistent work environment because > everything was different. > Having 84 window managers available, plus entire "systems" like KDE and Gnome is a bit different than one vendor offering two UI looks. Also you don't need to "quit" Finder to open the other method. > ** I don't want the programmer to decide "I'll use Cocoa here", or > "I'll use iOS here". > ** I want to have all my programs use my system. Not what the > programmer was comfortable with. > Very few programmers listen to me. > I hate the fact that Java programs do not behave like native apps on > any system. Even with Apple's customizations, they still don't behave > like native apps. Even with the default swing behavior looking so much > like the Microsoft windows behavior, on a Microsoft Windows system the > java apps are different than a normal MW program. Heck, even > Microsoft's own programs behave differently than the MS standard. > I believe Apple has decided to stop shipping Java. Consider your wish granted. > Microsoft windows 3, back when the only program with a different gui was a music player that fit inside the title bar of the active window? > Good gui days. > That's neither true nor was it "good gui days". TONS of third party software had different look and feel. > I'll just stop here. Clearly you and I compute different. No doubt, none of what I said will change your mind anyway, but at least I got to step on the soapbox for a few.
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