3/2/02 2:17:41 PM, "David A. Desrosiers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> ... except that every other application on the planet uses it :-) ... > > It also sets Plucker apart as unique. >From a UI usability standpoint, having completely different icons for common elements >is a flaw, not a feature, in my opinion. I don't see any advantage of a "cut" operation being anything other than a pair of scissors. The icon for the scissors can certainly be different to fit in with the program as a whole, but choosing a completely different item, such as a "knife" or a "cut out hole" steepens learning curve unneccessarily between when there is so many different computer applications that one uses in a day. This holds for CLI just as well. This week we were discussing the usefulness of calling an application's switch for example -V , when it does the same as -H in the other similar precedent apps and could have used the same interface element, but I don't consider that to be a benefit either. It just makes the learning curve greater to use the different applications. > If we were to use the hourglass, the "appropriate" place for it to >be would be in center of the viewport, not the upper-right corner. I agree; that is a good thought. There is an advantage ithough in that you can read the current screen display uninterrupted without the icon obscuring the window (in contrast to a desktop OS environment where you can just move the mouse;s wait cursor out of the way of what you are reading and continue, while you wait for the render to finish). OTOH, one loses any feedback once the toolbar is switched off: click open a long page with no toolbar and try to scroll up and down and there is no response to scrolling; the device seems frozen. Seems okay to me to leave it where it is, but you do bring up an interesting point for consideration. > Related to this, there was a question last week about changing the >"menu" icon into a Plucker icon, on the left side of the toolbar. I don't >like this idea either. The icon there denotes a drop-down menu (a few pixels >of cleanup and it could be nicely 3D or something), but putting the plucker >"pacifier" there would be counter-intuitive. I agree with you there. A menu icon has intrinsic meaning of a clicking on it and it brings up a menu. A Plucker icon would certainly be something unique (and separate us from other applications), but not help much in regards to not having to learn more to find out what it is exactly it is supposed to be for. For the shading, the reason why it was left non-3D when all the others were created 3D (and the menu icon was left in left hand corner) was to make it look more like a standard PalmOS titlebar (a thicker dark outline around the menu, which blends into a double-pixel full width bar below the entire toolbar). The purpose of this was to make Plucker fit in closely to the PalmOS device as a whole. The single pixels in the corners of the menu icon weren't rounded (like they are in a standard PalmOS titlebar) since when the toolbar goes to the bottom it doesn't look very nice. However, I can spend some more time and see what the best possible 3D shaded menu icon can be made and can then kick the tires. Best wishes, Robert
