I had become aware of and long appreciated Tog, even in 1983 when I had a job at Datamost, and the first mac on my desktop. The single floppy and the horrible printer got in the way and I didn't again consider the machine for my hardware control development work over the Apple ][ until 1987 when I got A&M Studios connected to the developer program (thanks to fellow Datamost employee Craig Keithley). It was in that first box that the Mac SE (with a 20mb hard drive) that I went looking for the included "card". What card? Where is it? Oh, it's *Hypercard*!
It changed my life of course and that of A&M Studios too. After that I could fully understand and utilize Tog's vision and its Xerox roots embedded in this wonderful tool as I built a dedicated control system for A&M tape copy <http://amstudios.net/htdoc/Pages/welcome_PP.html>. I think Tognazzini was written about in that first Mac User issue that featured members of the original design team. Keithley was a friend of Steve Jobs and Woz in the Apple ][ garage days, could have been employee #4 but he was very young and he and his parents moved to LA. He was "slightly" unhappy about that. He eventually got a job at 1 Infinite Loop. I'm sure Mike Markkula (Johnny Appleseed) knew of him too. If in 1975 I hadn't gotten pissed off at the Grateful Dead and taken off to LA, I very likely would have ended up at that Homebrew Computer Club because I was seeking information about these microprocessor thingies. In life, there are many forks in the road. Brushes with greatness. I am truly fortunate. sqb -- Stephen Barncard - Sebastopol Ca. USA - mixstream.org On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 10:50 PM Richard Gaskin via use-livecode < use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: > Bob Sneidar wrote: > > > I would LOVE to find out how Livecode for Mac draws those beautiful > > tab buttons so I can duplicate it on Windows, because DAYAM are the > > Windows ones ugly! > > Around the turn of the century I wrote to Bruce Tognazzini, back when he > was still taking email questions. > > I asked him about the proper placement of confirmation and dismissal > buttons (often "OK" and "Cancel") in cross-platform apps. I was > familiar with his early research on how the Mac layout (confirmation on > the right) matched eye tracking studies on scanning order, and thus was > a better solution. On Windows reading order is used (confirmation on > the left), which might seem better but not in UIs; dialog boxes just > aren't read as much as skimmed, so rather than taking in each line > individually as we do when we read, most folks more or less just scan > from upper-left to lower-right, where on Mac the action button awaits. > > So I asked Tog: > > "Given that the Mac way is borne out by research, wouldn't it be better > to use to Mac way in my Windows apps as well?" > > He was kind enough in his reply, acknowledging that at least my heart > was in the right place with wanting to "do the right thing" by the user. > But he was also blunt: I had missed something even more important than > research. I had overlooked the significance of user habits. > > When a user spends years with an OS design, they build up a cognitive > and muscle memory, so strong that even when research shows an advantage > to a different means, the consistency winds up outweighing it. > > In short, he suggested I do Windows things on Windows, and leave Mac > things on Mac. > > Who am I to argue with Tog? > > -- > Richard Gaskin > Fourth World Systems > Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web > ____________________________________________________________________ > ambassa...@fourthworld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your > subscription preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode > _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode