Piestar

I’ll retract my lack of show desktop complaint – just remembered that cmd F3 does a show desktop action.

>and when you launch a program you must wait for it to open before you can do anything or it’ll open on the wrong desktop.
Oh my. If gnome guys were not so retarded morons as they are, they would adopt http://code.google.com/p/gdevilspie/wiki/gDevilspie (yah, i know, it’s non-userfriendly).
Well, it could be implemented without separate application at all, with a right click on window title and setting something like “Always show on this workspace”.

>An often suggested alternative to multiple desktops is to allow program ‘groups’ in the task manager and then when you are using a particular group it will hide all windows from the desktop that are not in that group…
cwm (http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=cwm&sektion=1) does this for ages, but, you know, it’s not user-friendly again. Why not implement this for metacity? Because gnome guys are morons comfortly sitting on a bag of shit, not even considering anything new.

“Windows 7 has this solved incredibly well with the improved taskbar – watch this YouTube clip (Skip to 1:50 if you want, but watch for a few minutes) – which allows you to easily find your program, largely negating the need for multiple desktops, which Windows doesn’t have anyway.”
That’s not quite true. Microsoft – or more specifically Sysinternals – offer a tool named Desktops to achieve precisely that: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx
However, they didn’t boundle it with Windows. Virtual desktops are really rather annoying, because if you’d need them to balance so many windows that your desktop is full, then you won’t orientate with those spaces either.
The same goes for Compiz’s 3D cube: I have seen it so often by people who wanted to brag about it, to brag about how this is fucking awesome, but I NEVER saw a single person actually using that 3D cube for work or casual usage. Obviously, not everyone is keen on having to wait until that thingy spinned so you can switch to your other app(s).

@Carsten

Liked the “running yoke” comment. I realise it was a typo, but it has a certain simple expressive eloquence all its own …

This is just a thought, but… maybe with the .dmg thing, it’s an issue of trust. By making you do the drag/drop of the .app bundle to your Applications folder, OS X is telling you *exactly* what you are about to do, thus making the uninstall simple.

It obviously doesn’t work for apps that need to install things system-wide, or anything else that needs a .pkg installer, but drag-and-drop .app bundles are the majority.

Broken analogy ? The Mac method of SW installation – to me at least – *looks* like all that happens is “program file(s) is/are copied to folder”. If that was all that happend, how would the program ever wind up in the dock or anywhere, and how would the Finder know that this new app can open XYZ files ? So I assume that there is more going on under the hood, but the metaphor used completely hides that. On Windows it is pretty clear that setup programs do more than just copying the files.

If everyone used Mac’s, this wouldn’t be a problem. The real problem is the linux using freetards who don’t understand how a real operating system works and so copy OS X really really badly. OS X has had multiple desktops for years before linsux copied it, and yet even with Apple’s amazing examples to copy, they screwed it up. Linsux is going to go down in history as the biggest waste of time ever foisted upon the computer industry.

@Kerberos
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/355/rightclick.jpg

I opened my macbook just for you

That really sucks. Total apple fail right there.

You’ve got it backwards. Linux had multiple desktops years before OS X, ever since the early 90s. Apple is the one who copied multiple desktops, though they did add slick animations to the implementation.

And Linux got it from Unix/CDE, which in turn got it from Amiga, so really, who gives a shit?

None of those markers show hidden windows unless you explicitly invoke some other action,

I’m fairly certain they show up in the task list, but as you say, the point of hiding windows is that they be hidden. I’m pretty sure there’s alt-tab task switching as well, at least on Tiger (my Macs are all PPC macs, so no SL for me).

The availability of add-ons that repaired usability issues for Windows are rarely counted as points in its favor.

Only because freetards jump at any opportunity to hate on Windows and invoke their lol-it’s-just-and-apt-get-away double-standard. It’s a free add-on, it counts as far as I’m concerned.

Secondly, I work tech support and see Macs on a daily basis – I have yet to see a single student running QuickSilver.

That’s a shame. QS is really a must-have, especially combined with Automator. My experience is the opposite though, every Mac I come upon that’s used by a non-layman (and I assume, rightfully I think, people commenting here are not laymen) has QS installed.

(falls apart when there’s lots of windows, but so does Expose),

Now you’re losing me, you’re fussing that the Windows solution is better than the OSX solution, while making a point to mention that the Windows solution possesses the same flaw as the mac solution? But hey, there’s the tasklist for the lots of windows situation.

or hit alt-tab. In OS X, I have to explicitly invoke Expose,

You can alt-tab in OSX as well, or you could, like I said, I’m on an older release, they may have mucked it up since.

CTRL + Click sucks and you know it , there’s a reason apple got so much flak for having a single button mouse.

Agreed, at first anyway. It became second nature though (and there’s the two-finger tap on trackpads). The single-button mouse was only a problem for Windows users moving over to the Mac, though. Keep in mind that the single-button had been the status quo in Macistan for decades, and it made sense, the system was designed around it, MacOS was always drag-and-drop orientated rather than point-and-click oriented. Though I do see why people used to two or three buttons would have issue with just one.

Why not drag the DMG to the app folder?

Possibly to avoid confusing applications with the .app extension on app bundles (it’s not a “real” extension, it’s just a normal folder. Why Tar something in Unix?

Why not double click on the DMG and have it move the app to the app folder?

Because not everyone installs to the app folder, and because the in-built browser automounts DMGs upon download completion anyway, so generally speaking, you’re not even double-clicking on the DMG at all.

The current process is more work than it should be.

Dragging an icon and dropping it on another is not ‘more work than it should be’ especially when considering that the interface is built around drag-and-drop, rather than point-and-click, and has been since Classic MacOS. And moreso since the initial double-click to mount the DMG is easily taken out of the equation

I *do* like that apps are generally one file rather than a mess of folders and registry entries but I certainly don’t think it’s easier than Windows.

Either approach is equally brain-dead simple if you ask me…

it’s just funny that it takes more work and isn’t as obvious (it doesn’t get any more obvious than double clicking something).

It’s funny how you make dragging and dropping (generally an inch away) to be some sort of monumental feat of labour.

Try looking at from the longtime OSX user perspective, the interface has been built around drag/drop for two decades at this point. This IS expected behaviour, this is normal, this is how things work. It doesn’t get any more obvious – especially given the “DRAG THAT TO HERE” present in so many DMGs. It’s every bit as asinine as a long-time mac user complaining that double-clicking and running through a series of dialogs/wizards is counter-intuitive (and let’s not leave that out, either, app bundles and drag/drop you’re done, no-clicking through dialogs involved).

Consider that you’re talking about a system where the obvious and intuitive way to open a document with a given program is to drop it onto the app icon (rather than right click, open with, and that, imho is the where the Dock really shines – little stuff like dropping a document on the transmit or forklift icon FTPs it to your default site, etc) you can argue that drag/drop is somehow unintuitive within a system centred around the concept of drag/drop.

As far as Expose is concerned it is again a patch to deal with the fact that the dock sucks

I always thought of it as an added value kind of thing, myself – given that there’s expose, the dock, the task list and alt-tab (or it it cmd, or apple tab?) to choose from.

It doesn’t integrate and extend the dock, instead it acts as a situational replacement and suffers if you have a lot open or multiple windows

Which is a situation where you’d use alt-tab or the task-list. But let’s say you’re doing DTP or graphics and you’ve got a fucktonne of graphical files open, all of a sudden expose starts to look pretty badass in this context doesn’t it? As with anything else, it comes down to using the tool most appropriate to the task. (I generally use the dock to track/switch between apps, task list to switch between non-visual documents, and expose for graphical documents).

as it’s near impossible to tell the difference on zoom. You have to ask yourself constantly ‘what will suck less with what I am doing, dock or expose?’

Or you could look at it the opposite way, “which is most appropriate for the type of documents I am working with?”.

It’s like having a car that doesn’t go over 50mph and buying a second car that also doesn’t go over 50mph to augment it. I’d rather have on car that did 100mph instead.

I’d look at it more like having both a car and a tracktor that go 50mph, you have both because you wouldn’t drive to town on a tractor, nor use your car to plow the fields, but then again I always sucked at making bad car analogies.

Although we are only talking a couple of seconds delay in trying to figure out how to get to the window you want it is arguably more frustrating than it needs to be

I’ll concede that figuring out which of the four main task-switching methods is most suited for which type of workflow may take more trial and error than anything else, but on the other hand, you have to figure that the purely visual method (expose) isn’t the best fit for picking out non-visual (ie. text) documents.

I’ll also concede that it took me a while to figure out that clicking and holding on an active icon in the dock reveals a list of documents/windows open with that application – that could stand to be more intuitive.

and makes you have to think a lot more than you really should.

Until you get the hang of it, deciding between dock/expose/tasklist/alt-tab becomes second nature once you figure out which you like best of a given workflow… Until you discover QS anyway, QS is mighty.

In Windows 7 going to an existing running task is effortless but even after 4 months+ of OSX usage I still find it jarring mentally to use and pretty primitive.

That’s where we differ, I guess, after more than a decade on both Windows and Mac OS, I’ll take the latter over the former for workflow every time, through no fault of Windows. It’s just the Mac approach seems more intuitive and more friendly to my particular workflows.

I’ll look into those links you provided but I am a huge fan of sensible defaults – having to tweak something with ‘everyone knows that’ knowledge to get it into a state where it’s not irritating is not a good thing.

Agreeably so. OSX is far from perfect, and as mentioned previously there are thing that irritate me to no end, but on the whole, in the context of my average workflow, it requires the least tweaking, and offers the most seemless experience.

And finder sucks.

Please. Don’t get me started on Finder, though file managers are generally something I’m never content with ( I hate explorer, too, Xplorer2 ftw) the being stuck between spacial and orthodox style drives me up the wall (though I do like finder’s column layout for browsing stuff like music libraries and soundbanks).

As strange as it may sound, Quicksilver + Spotlight is pretty badass for file management once you get the hang of it. Pathfinder is neat to, albeit not free (from the QS devs, too, IIRC) it sounds pretty OCD, but once you get into the QS vibe, you’ll be using it for everything (I think I’ve mentioned some of the overly convoluted QS/SL/Automator macros I use on a daily basis over the course of my exchanges with Ohioham).

Midnight Commander (>_< )_\m/
(just kidding)

I love the Dock, though I agree that Finder drives me fucking nuts at times. Not enough to use PathFinder (which is just too buggy for my needs), but enough that I live by Launchbar at this point.

Just a tip for dealing with multiple windows — click and hold on an app in the dock, it’ll show you all the open windows Expose style and you can even use your arrow keys to select what window you want. I use it all the time when trying to see what emails I have open. Even better, after you select a window with your keyboard arrow keys, if you can’t tell for sure what the window is showing, press spacebar and it’ll invoke QuickView, which enlarges the window without automatically bringing it to the front.

And I agree with you on multiple desktops, which is why I don’t use spaces. My best solution is to just use multiple monitors (a 23″ hooked up to my 27″ iMac), but on my MacBook, that’s obviously not an option and I feel your pain. Click and hold to Expose.

Weird about the right-click option being changed on the newer Macs. I just assumed it was just like before where you could enable it to tap to click on the right side for a secondary click like they do on the Magic Mouse. Bad Apple!

. Having to learn special key commands, additional software and a myriad of different window management methods that a developer, after 4+ months, still has issues with indicates a problem with the system.

I guess that makes the difference, I work in media (though I’ve been doing a lot more DTP and pre-press than original art/design lately), and OSX is as intuitive and workflow friendly as it gets for me, Took a little over a week to feel at ease, and it was all second nature by the end of the second. But that’s Apple’s tarditional core market and userbase (it’s not purely about the apps, after all). Evidently what is intuitive, obvious and workflow-friendly to a media pro is not necessarily intuitive, obvious and workflow friendly to a pro developer, and vise-versa.

I can’t fault Apple for catering to and staying true to their core audience.

after 4+ months, still has issues with indicates a problem with the system.

I wouldn’t go that far, but again, I suppose it is to be expected when the everday workflow of the core audience and of yours are fundamentally different (I think we can agree that in general designers and developers have very, very different workflows and approaches to handling those workflows). You can’r please both, and your cant flip your core market the bird, someone has to lose, truth be told it would be sad if OSX were to take on a more Windows-like UI – I use Windows every day, I like it, I think 7 is great, but OSX is much more friendly to my workflow.

With peek and preview it is not superior to Windows 7 and although it can easily be argued you can do the same things it’s not as easy, obvious, logical or as simple.

Perhaps it’s more developer oriented, I don’t know. You’re still not going to convince me that drag-and-drop is counter-intuitive and overly-convoluted :p And as I’d suggested. Expose is badass for media-heavy workflows, but hey, there’s got to be a reason why MacOS is considered the designer’s OS (aside from DTP being born on the Mac), and that’s probably it.

the dock is nearly a decade old and they need to do something about it. Expose isn’t it.

I maintain that Expose is a value-added mechanism included in addition to the dock, for different workflows, rather than an extension to tit or a “fix” (quotes because I don’t think the dock is broken in the least).

Alt-tab only switches programs, not windows, at least in 10.5 and 10.6. Which presents a problem when you have many windows open for a single app,

Enter the dock, hold a left-click on the icon of an active application, and be presented with a list of active windows for that application.

I’m afraid to confess my ignorance here, but what task list? Are you referring to the box invoked by alt-tab, or the list of programs on the dock?

It may have been removed from newer releases (I wouldn’t know) but there should be a menu in the finderbar than when expanded contains a list of active tasks, clicking on a task switches focus (or at least the finder bar’s focus) to said active task.

. Not enough to use PathFinder (which is just too buggy for my needs)

I didn’t find PathFinder all that buggy myself, though I didn’t find it good enough to pay for either, some swear by it though. QuickSilver cures all.

Back to the initial topic for a moment, I agree, Virtual desktops are pointless and a poor substitute for a single desktop spread across multiple monitors.

And back away from the topic – Anyone know if the iPad supports styluses and presure sensitivity? As much as I like my Wacom tablet, it’s still weird drawing in one place and having it appear elsewhere, I think being able to draw directly on-screen, just like drawing on paper would make for an epic graphics tablet.

None of the things that everyone suggests are necessary for an efficient workflow are actually discoverable – a cardinal sin.

Nah, stuff that! Everyone should be using vi… for everything!

For the record in my opinion the #1 key element in UI design is discoverability.

I couldn’t agree more. A poorly discoverable UI would be like asking someone, with no experience, to fly an alien space ship and telling them to park it a few miles down the street. Everyone understands the TASK, but nobody can figure out how to accomplish it.

How do you start it? How do I make it move? What buttons control the windshield wipers and which ones fire the lasers? etc. I’m sure the aliens are all laughing calling the silly human a “noob” because to them it’s “so easy…once you know what you’re doing”.

Re: iPad styli
There are some third-party tools but so far, most are not of very high quality, though I expect that will come. There are different pressure points and sensitivity sensors and t supports 10 separate simultaneous multitouch zones. That said, it’s not a Cintiq replacement. However even with the finger only, you can do some extraordinary work in the drawing apps like Brushes.

1) The dock is broken and takes too much space: it’s good to launch a limited number of app, until you notice that Spotlight is even better and faster once you know the name of the apps (which happens very quickly).

2) The dock isn’t very useful to switch between tasks: The best way I found to switch between tasks and documents on OS X is to affect 3 screen corners (2 on the right + the bottom left) to Exposé and space (app level + doc level + Space). Space makes sure that the number of window per virtual desktop remains low enough, therefore making sure that I can identify quickly each window. Task switching becomes very effective in this case.

3) Reducing windows is crap on OS X: you know a window has been reduced, but it’s not always easy to see what the document is, so I simply avoid reducing windows. Of course, this assumes that your desktop is empty (no folder, no document, no shortcut), or this is not going to work. In my case, I make a virtue of necessity: this forces me to remain organized (with each doc in each correct folder) instead of being lazy, with stuff everywhere on my desktop.

4) The dock default placement sucks. Putting it at the bottom of the screen on a 16/10 or 16/9 screen is stupid waste of pixel space. Putting it on the side (with auto hide) makes much more sense. The pseudo 3D dock makes even less sense.

The task bar on XP sucks nearly as much, but for different reasons: You have to precisely aim for the button (the button does not extend all the way to the bottom): this is stupid (I believe this has been corrected on 7). Switching between many documents for a single app sucks (this is were Exposé wins). I haven’t used Windows 7 on my work computer so I don’t know if switching between 10 Excel docs is still such a mess.

There are some third-party tools but so far, most are not of very high quality, though I expect that will come. There are different pressure points and sensitivity sensors and t supports 10 separate simultaneous multitouch zones. That said, it’s not a Cintiq replacement. However even with the finger only, you can do some extraordinary work in the drawing apps like Brushes.

Yeah, too bad it boils down to being a fingerpainting app. All the professionals I know who were hoping for a portable Cintique were disappointed. Since it can’t run full OSX they couldn’t run illustrator, painter, storyboard pro or 3d modelling packages that use a pen like Z-Brush.

Ah, it does this on a standard installation. However, if you have the language bar installed, a common feature in Office 2000-2003 installations, it modifies the height of the taskbar by a few pixels, and utterly fucks it all up. Absolutely MS’ fault, as they should be catching that crap if they’re going to shovel useless toolbars into the taskbar, but otherwise, it works correctly.

Other toolbars that can be added to the taskbar might do the same thing. Of course, YMMV.

Yeah, too bad it boils down to being a fingerpainting app

Which could be interesting on an artistic, rather than design level. Not interesting enough to dish out the cash for an iPad for that express purpose, mind you. Frankly, I’d settle for something like Inkscape, if it means I get to draw directly on the screen, and on the go – but knowing Inkscape and FOSS in general, it won’t support presure sensitivity, multitouch or screen orientation, or any of the native niceties, they just call it a port and leave it at that once they get it and GTK to build =/

Since it can’t run full OSX they couldn’t run illustrator, painter, storyboard pro or 3d modelling packages that use a pen like Z-Brush.

Even if it did run OSX proper, I don’t imagine working with either would be particularly pleasant on the iPad’s 1ghz A4 and 256mb of RAM…

None of the things that everyone suggests are necessary for an efficient workflow are actually discoverable

I guess our definitions of discoverable differ slighty. Holding a click and seeing a menu of opened documents being presented _is_ discoverable, unless discoverability entails a giant neon sign with blinky lights telling you you can hold the click.

Take the multiple windows for one program situation. On Windows you hover over the icon (dock/taskbar) and it gives you mini-thumbnails of each instance.

That’s because Windows, as the name suggests is designed around a window-centric paradigm, as opposed to MacOS which is designed around a document-centric paradigm (another thing that arguably makes it more designer-friendly).

It makes a lot of sense if you stop looking at the dock as an analogue to the Windows task bar (it isn’t, and it never was, the closest it comes is keeping track of _minimized_ windows). It doesn’t keep track of open Windows, it keeps track of open apps – each app can have several open documents associated to it, it seems natural that that you’ll find a list of open documents associated with a given application under the icon used to show you that said app is active.

Expose, on the other hand, doesn’t keep track of active applications, so much as it keeps track of active documents. The Finder bar’s tasklist also keeps track of active applications (rather than documents) in a logical way – applications use the finder bar for their menus, makes sense that the finderbar would offer up a means to keep track of which applications’ menus it’s carrying, doesn’t it?

If you’re looking for an analogue to the Windows taskbar in OSX, you’re just not going to find it in a document-centric as opposed to window-centric interface. Windows makes no distinction between an application, a window and a document, whereas MacOS does make the distinction, and the entire system is built around the fact that the distinction is made (even the global-MDI interface is build around the concept of documents within apps as opposed windows.

I do not believe you can chalk all these issues up to unfamiliarity with the platform, especially considering functionality I only just found out about was blatantly obvious in Windows 7 after less than a minutes usage.

I disagree. The was MacOS handles things is both obvious and logical within a document-centric paradigm, but not in a window-centric paradigm. An application isn’t contrained to a window, and a document is different from an application, it’s entirely sensible to have different mechanisms to keep track of them – there is however no such distinction in the window-centric paradigm of Windows, so having such mechanisms in place is neither logical nor obvious. Being unaware of the distinction between the two very different paradigms that the two sustems are designed around can entirely be chalked up to unfamiliarity with a given system – someone aware of the document-centric workflow expects the system to behave in a document-centric manner, as opposed to window-centric one.

Karabros John Stamos is right. Just because you refuse to adjust your way of thinking to the way an OS was made doesn’t mean you can wine about it not being winders Vista SP1. “blah blah blah this os isn’t winders blah blah blah I want Ballmer’s cock!”

Adam: you need to stop associating with oiaohm so much (giving up the ludicrous BoycottNovell might help you here). Your spelling is degenerating to the point where it’s almost as bad as your logic.

Everybody else: I don’t know whether it’s relevant, but you might be interested in Steve Yegge’s observations on Mac vs Windows usability. Not strictly to do with the dock and discoverability, but worth a read nonetheless: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/04/settling-osx-focus-follows-mouse-debate.html

@Kommenter

Minor, yes, but as an outsider to the current discussion, it looks very familiar.

It does however shed light on one thing (I think). Even if you’re an accomplished developer, and you have access to all the relevant APIs, some of these issues are practically intractable — and, specifically, because they’ve passed the point of “it’s just how we do it at the moment” and graduated to the point where “everybody does it this way: tough titties!”

Winbreds always blame others for their shortcomings. First it’s RMS’ jokes, now it’s the Apple windowing system, soon it’ll be because the world is revolting against the illegal monopoly.

How did you discover this?
What made you think you should hold the click on the button when you get an immediate response from a quick one?

The same way Leif Erikson discovered Vinland: by accident/exploration/trying to go to Groenland and ending up there instead :p

Why DID you hold a click when you pressed the icon for the first time, what made you do it?

Believe it or not, it started off with noticing that clicking an active icon brought up all of its associated windows and thinking “hey, that’s cool, I wonder if I can selectively bring up only a specific document, you know, like taskgrouping on XP” so I tried clicking once, then I tried clicking twice, then I tried a right-click, then I tried a click+hold and though “Nice! I can!”. The functionality was discovered by exploration, rather than a giant flashing neon sign telling me to do it.

I’ve had my macbook for a few weeks and i’ve only learned about the “Hold the click” thingy from this thread.

I stumbled upon it on it inside the first day, many, many years ago. And again, it’s just a dfifferent way of looking at it, my reaction was “hey, that’s cool” rather than “omg it’s not like windows it sucks the should be mouseover previews” (possibly because I find things popping out without my telling them to, to be rather obnoxious). Though I do like how Windows 7 does it, It’s not something I’d like to see on the dock, at least not unless I expressly invoke it (by holding a click) though an extra notifier (maybe an small upward pointing arrowhead on the active icon) to show that there are multiple documents associated with the active application could be nice, though it’s largely a moot point at this point, since I already know that I can click+hold on an active icon. And one could argue that the active icon identifier implies multiple windows, since apps are not confined to their single Window on MacOS (because global MDI makes sense on a document-centric system).

Sure it may be possible to accidentally discover it but it’s not guaranteed and the fact I didn’t in 4+ months says it all.

Honestly, all that tells me is that for some odd reason you never thought to click and hold, or to screw around with your dock. Is your gripe that it took 4 months to figure it out, or that there was no giant flashing neon sign telling you what to do, or that it isn’t exactly like Windows? In other words, now that you know that you can click+hold to get the desired effect, are you using your new discovery or still griping that it should be exactly like Windows? Do you forget that you can click+hold?

I’m trying to be a prick or anything here, but what exactly is your gripe now? Initially it was that the functionality does not exist. You’ve now discovered that it in fact does exist, and appear to be griping about it taking 4 months to figure out.

while the dock on the ‘document centric OS’ can’t handle multiple documents from the same application

But it does. You can’t keep griping about it not having that functionality now that you know it’s just a click+hold away. It’s just that the dock primarily keeps track of running applications (it’s not a taskbar, it’s an app launcher with extra functionality), it’ll even keep track of minimized windows, and it has a secondary function of tracking documents associated with an active application (as opposed to expose, whose primary function is to display active, opened documents on a per-desktop basis, rather than on a per-application basis)

And what’s with the scare quotes around “document centric”. Really, do you think they made a global MDI interface where closing the last document/window associated with an app leaves the app running (because you closed the last active document, not the app itself, the app is not the same as the window (as is the case on Windows) for shits and giggles? No, they didn’t. A fair deal of thought went into to designing the UI around a document-centric rather than Window-centric paradigm.

It’s like griping over Illustrator being curve-based rather than line-based as Draw is and scare quoting “curve-based”, they’re fundamentally different approaches to the same concept, and everything is designed around the approach taken – one shouldn’t act like the other, it makes absolutely no sense for them to do so within the paradigm they’re designed around, you might as well throw the paradigm out the window and end up with the inconsistent mishmash or cobbled together garbage usability nightmare that is Linux at that point.

so all you’d need to do is hover over the PS icon and see thumbnail previews of all your open documents.

All all you need to do with the dock is hold on the active icon. Or hit the expose key if your documents are already open, or look at the right side of the dock if they’re minimized.

Your whole ‘the dock doesn’t need to handle documents as the system is document centric’

Except I didn’t quite say that, now did I? This comment is already more than longwinded enough as is, I’ve addressed that already, but I’ll reiterate: the dock does handle documents. You can’t keep griping about how it doesn’t, despite knowing that it does and it’s just a click+hold away. Gripe that it’s not immediately obvious to your heart’s content, but don’t gripe about the functionality not existing at all when you know that it does.

Open applications should be lit to provide a visual indicator of functionality.

After 4 months you haven’t noticed the active application marker on active dock icons, or was that little triangle at the botom of an icon removed in SL?

Please don’t fall into the Linux fans trap where they feel the system they have is somehow perfect and thus needs defended to death

I made no such claims of perfection, as evidenced by my disdain for the Finder and window transparency. I’m sorry that it took four months and a blogpost for you to find click+hold, whereas I intuitively figured it out on my first day.

I just don’t think it’s the monumental problem you seem to make it out to be- though again, maybe a second identifier would help make it more immediately obvious (though I don’t like the idea of the dock popping up previews on mouseover)

and as a result they will stick us with a mid 90′s UI design for all eternity because they are afraid of change if they could.

Change is good if there’s a good reason for it. “Windows 7 does this” however is no more a good reason to redesign the entire UI than “MacOS does this” is a good reason for so many changes in various Linux UIs.

I think the hidden fuctionality exposed by holding a click is neat, and that having thumbnails pop out on mouseover would be obnoxious. You think the former is obtuse and the latter is the shizzle. That’s fine, but that’s also what this exchange ultimately boils down to.

I am saying OSX has some real issues,

And I wholeheartedly agree, I just don’t agree that document/window/task/app tracking or drag-and-drop vs. double-click+next+next+next+next+finish fall into that category,

I just can’t think of many deal-breaking shortcoming off the top of my head (other than finder sucking, and transparency being annoying), I actually like the document-centric approach and all that comes with it (I also expect it, since I’ve been using MacOS since System7), but I can say the same about Windows – I really can’t think of many deal-breaking shortcomings relating to Windows, off the top of my head. In fact my biggest gripe is that it doesn’t have something like Automator (that I know of) so I can’t transpose the QuickSilver+Spotlight+Automator workflow OSX has spoiled me rotten with over to Windows, which really isn’t a gripe at all – and Explorer sucks too, but just as QS fixes the Finder issue, Xplorer2 fixes the Explorer issue.

Why else would MSN Messenger, Steam and Spotify need system tray icons?

Exactly. And each respective interface is designed around weather there’s a distinction between different types of windows or not. And I’m curious as to how Windows 7′s taskbar deals with applications that minimize to the systray rather than the taskbar (by exposure to 7 is limited, since I don’t run it on my home Windows machines).

If the 7 taskbar doesn’t show thumbnails of systray-minimized wondows, are we to start a another gripefest about how it’s obtuse and unintuitive and not exactly like Windows 7 and that the entire UI absolutely requires a complete redesign? Or are we going to play the Linux game and unilaterally pass blame onto the application developers for the stupid inconsistent behaviour, even though Microsoft’s own apps (messenger) minimize to the tray instead of the task bar?

Karabros John Stamos is right. Just because you refuse to adjust your way of thinking to the way an OS was made doesn’t mean you can wine about it not being winders Vista

Kerberos is entitled to gripe all he wants over whatever he wants to gripe about, for whatever reason he wants to. I’m not even saying that he’s wrong (he isn’t, but I don’t think he’s exactly right either, this is more a difference of opinion than anything else), only pointing out that there’s a (imho good) reason why such behavior exists. He may not agree on it being a good reason, but that is, of course, his prerogative.

I could go into a longwinded rant about how there’s a difference between “they’re designed around different paradigms and so act different and this is why:” versus “it’s different because it’s different and you’re just too stupid to accept that”. Or how while Windows and MacOS have been designed around differing paradigms of how a desktop should work, Linux is stitched togther rather than designed, nevermind around a given paradigm, unless “be different for the sake of being different unless it’s convenient to be the same, but not quite the same, because we don’t appear to understand why what we’re trying to copy (poorly) does what it does the way it does it, but we’ll continue to operate under the understanding that putting the icons on the left makes Gnome EXACTLY like MacOS and having a panel at the bottom makes it EXACTLY like Windows, but doesn’t behave like either one because it’s still different for not good reason, while pretending to be exactly the same, but it’s okay because users are stupid and should not have any expectations.” qualifies as a user interface paradigm.

@John Stamos
“whereas I intuitively figured it out on my first day”
No, you accidentally stumbled upon it. There was no reason for you to attempt click and hold since it has no relevancy anywhere else.

“In other words, now that you know that you can click+hold to get the desired effect, are you using your new discovery or still griping that it should be exactly like Windows? Do you forget that you can click+hold? ”

I use it all the time now, and considering how useful it is there should be a fucking NEON SIGN on the box, during boot, during login and all the time on the dock telling me about it (I’m exaggerating but it is one thing that should not take 4 months to discover, or random chance).

“And I’m curious as to how Windows 7′s taskbar deals with applications that minimize to the systray rather than the taskbar”

It doesn’t, programs need to use new APIs. There’s also a guideline specifying when to use the tray or the taskbar.

“even though Microsoft’s own apps (messenger) minimize to the tray instead of the task bar? ”

They don’t, post windows 7 versions of MSN use the new APIs.

Simplifying: We love the click and hold functionality, we hate the fact it took so long (or possibly never) to discover it.

@Kerberos: “I would never try click and hold simply because, as a UI device, I have never seen it used anywhere, ever. ”

In fact, this is used in Windows Mobile as a sustitute for right-mouse-click (otherwise hard to do with a stylus or finger). But I agree that, since “hover over icon -> more info (Tooltipp)” is a known principle, hovering is more discoverable. Nonetheless, the discussion reminds me of this old entry:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html

(It’s a bit long, so feel free do drop down to the line “Let’s pause for a minute and go back to computers.” and read from there.)

Regards, Carsten

Oh, and re GIMP (since I know how you love that app):
http://www.mmiworks.net/eng/publications/labels/GIMP.html
Some interesting ideas IMHO – but what do you think about his ideas re CYMK ?
http://www.mmiworks.net/eng/publications/2009/06/gimp-squaring-cmyk-circle.html
I’m a stranger in the land of printing presses, but this does not sound like the way I would want to work.

@Carsten

I’m a reasonably generic user of emacs and the CLI. (I really should look into PowerShell some time.)

It’s not that difficult to bounce between desktop paradigms, I think. I can even (horrors!) get used to a Unix shell where some idiot has insisted on set -o vi … whatever floats your boat.

I think the issue is more to do with expectations. I do *not* expect to hold down a mouse button for an arbitrary length of time before options appear. I *do* expect floating tool-tips. I also expect a GUI (any GUI) to offer me a reasonable set of options that are reasonably discoverable and do not arbitrarily force me to use the CLI instead. Basically, that’s where Linux fails.

Oddly enough, I used to feel the same way about Solaris’ CDE, which was intensely badly designed.

Avoid clutter, make things simple, etc. It can’t be that hard.

I seem to recall that the multiple desktop featurette first appeared on an arcade game, btw. One would think that it was Atari, but if memory serves, it was in fact Defender. That was an interesting game … the first entry into arcade games by pinball manufacturers Williams Electronics. I guess your first experience with multiple desktops is always the best.

Pffft. Vi(m) forever.

Why don’t you just give up defending a bad UI design already?

In the case that it wasn’t already glaringly apparent, because I don’t think it’s quite as terrible UI design as it is being made up to be. I know full well that I won’t convince anyone who thinks otherwise, nor do I try, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot have a discussion. OMG we have different opinions on something, heavens to Betsy, how can this be possible!?

Your apples to oranges comparisons don’t quite help your case either. A mobile phone, and elevator button, etc, none are a desktop UI, and none a built around a single button, and none counteract the claim that it has been standard and expect MacOS behavior for the past 26 years. The point being, that while it may not be behaviour you’d expect on a phone, or elevator or vcr or Windows PC, it is nevertheless expected behaviour on a Mac, and has been for two and a half decades. My contention is that to say it is somehow non-standard or unexpected doesn’t jive because it’s following 26 year old Mac standards and conventions, though I do agree that it can stand to be made more obvious since it doesn’t exist in a bubble where everyone using it is a macOS veteran, what’s worse is that few of your examples are actually _good_ examples.

Though your elevator button example is an interesting one, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone not hold the “keep doors open” button.

Same for TV remotes: You’ve never thought to hold down on the button for rapid channel-surfing, or to increase/decrease volume my more than a couple of increments? How about calibration, never thought of holding down the button to rapidly, say max the brightness or contrast?

- How about monitor calibration or settings?
- How about finding a station on a radio with buttons rather than a tuner dial?
- How about certain makes of never microwaves or stove/ovens?
- How about video games, I sure no one has ever played, say Contra and thought to hold down on the fire button to autofire the machine gun, and I’m sure nobody figured to hold the B button to run while playing mario, especially come that giant gap that cannot be passed in any other way in world 8, etc.
- Then there’s the gas and brake pedals in a car – certainly nobody thinks to hold down on either, right?
- I’m I’m sure people with tower PCs with a single power/reset button have never figured out that holding on power, powers down, right?
- How about Intercoms?
- How about door buzzers at apartment buildings?
- Even your mocking example of a venomous snake, you’ve never noticed that snake handlers grab and hold from right below the head? Though I’m fairly certain nobody thinks of clicking or double clicking on venomous snakes, either.

You’re absolutely right though, nothing has ever had hold-the-button-down functionality, this is unique to the MacOS dock, never, has there ever been a situation where people think to hold down a button elsewhere in the history of evrything, right?

Which part is “wrong” anyway?
- That I don’t think it’s that bad a design choice (which isn’t up for debate, and cannot be right nor wrong)
- That I found it to be discoverable (“wrong” here would mean that I in fact did not find such functionality inside of the first day, which is ludicrous to dispute)
- That I thought to hold down on a button while others did not? (you’d effectively be arguing that this is impossible, which a profoundly silly argument)
- Or that these are not standard, expected MacOS UI behaviours that have followed the same conventions for more than two decades? (they are and they have, what exactly are you arguing?)

I think we’ll have to just agree to disagree.
Agreed.

I also think I am right though
As I said earlier, I don’t think you’re wrong, but I don’t think you’re exactly right either, though I have conceded that there’s evidently room for improvement. Conversely, I don’t think I’m wrong either, nor do I believe that I am (or can be) exactly right either. It’s a matter of differing opinions.

I’m pleased that we have engage in such a discussion without having it degenerate into name-calling or insulting each other’s intelligence. <3

I’m a stranger in the land of printing presses, but this does not sound like the way I would want to work.

It’s strage. Okay, they’re seeing the importance of non-destructive editing, that’s good, at least.

The idea of an overlay which simulates what the image will look like in CMYK is neat, but the implementation is just weird – having a colour-profile calibrated to the press itself seems odd if you’re working with plate-printing or screen printing.

For one, it stands to potentially get convoluted to managed if working with multiple presses, and for two, you still need to be able to mix the dyes/inks/pigments to achieve colours – which is why we use Pantone and Hexachrome.

Not to mention that this method falls flat on its face when confronted with colours in the RGB gamut which cannot be reproduced within the CMYK gamut (which is more common that people seem to think, given that one colourspace is additive and the other subtractive, as well as using different base colours.

Then there are the workflow implications. Traditionally, you’d open up the artwork twice: one being the original RGB artwork, and the other being the converted CMYK working copy. You have them open side by side, and you match colours accordingly, rather than “edit, call overlay, drop overlay, edit more, repeat”

The whole premise seems to be hinged on “creative work is done in RGB” which is completely true (very few do creative work in CMYK, and ever fewer using managed spot colours) doesn’t change that pre-press work is done entirely in CMYK – because RGB cannot be reprocuded in the real world – it’s designed for screens, whereas CMYK is designed for fixing pigments and inks.

Even after that, you still need to separate the colour channels into separate images for the sake of burning positives, and later burning the screen or the plate (only one colour is printed at a time). Anyway, this method shows you what your RGB colours will look like coming out of the printer, but it doesn’t seem to deal with the process of matching your RGB colours to CMYK colours, so that the print actually ends up looking like the original artwork, nor does it appear to deal limiting you to colours which exist in both colour gamuts, nor does it account for colour management or calibration (which is again why we use Pantone/Hexachrome – “Tomato Red” in Pantone is the same Tomato red everywhere, even if it doesn’t look like it on screen).

While all this is fine in the world of digital printing (or at least the issues are less pronounced – you don’t need to separate colours, and you don’t need pantones/hexachrome unless required, since you don’t need to mix inks or dyes yourself) you still need CMYK, you still need a sensible way to match colours accross gamuts.

The comments are just clueless:

Seems like a complex subject. I’ve heard CMYK is the norm for relatively small-time graphic artists getting their work printed, but I could easily be remembering wrong.

You heard wrong. CMYK is the norm in print in general. The presses are all CMYK or Hexachrome, or some other other subtractive colour model (because inks, dyes and pigments are subtractive). RGB is additive. you can’t print additively, ink, dye and pigments aren’t additive. Small time? Even in the big time, presses don’t work in RGB.

From what I understand, one of the big problems with RGB is it represents more colors then CMYK;

Again you understand wrong. It’s not so much an issue of more colours, but an issue of different colour gamuts. Some parts of the colour gamuts overlap, but the majority doesn’t. Some things just aren’t possible with subtractive colour (pure blacks for example you’ll get progressively darker browns, but you’ll never get pure black – and white, white means no colour, transparency, where not to print, and the colours aren’t as bright in subtractive models as they are in additive ones).

so when you go to print your an image, you find the colors are slightly off.

Welcome to the world of pre-press.That’s what it’s for.

Seems this could be solved with some sort of color profiling system, that would ensure what you see on your canvas (on screen) is within the gamut of your target format (CMYK or whatever).

Welcome to the world of print, it’s called Pantone and Hexachrome. Except you’re still not going to get your pure blacks and mega-bright colours, because you can’t achieve those in a subtractive model (again, meaning with dyes, inks or pigments).

That way you’ll see exactly what you’ll get from the printer, but without having to really store the image in CMYK.

Only of you ignore that inks dues and pigments still need to be mixed, missing the whole point that what you see on screen needs to be modified to be brought in line with what’s possible in print. Again, that’s why Pantone is built on top of CMYK (because inks are mixed subtractively), while Pantone provides the recipe of which inks to mix in which proportions to achieve a given colour. You still need to store the image in CMYK, and you still need to colour-match from RGB to CMYK, if you’re doing pre-press anyway. If you’re simply doing the creative aspect of making the artwork, you don’t need to care about CMYK.

So if you have the CMYK profile for your specific printer, paper and inks, then GIMP can show you which colors are out of gamut and how the printout will look like. Of course this also requires a good and reasonably well calibrated screen.

Of course this also requires that you’re using a printer, and not a plate or screen press.

In my view it’s critical that you can use cmyk tools on the “projection” ie that the curves and the colour picker feed you accurate cmyk info. Sounds cpu intense to me since it all has to be realtime.

Or you can, you know stop pretending that having a converted CMYK working copy somehow destroys the original RGB file, and work with each, side by side.

Personally I would never trust the screen as I have yet to experience a perfectly calibrated system.

Probably because you use Linux. Colour management and calibration on Linux stinks, sorry, but hey, that’s what Pantone is for, once again. You know what it’ll look like in print even if it does not appear that way on screen.

The last thing that we have to understand about the activity is how eclectic real‐life workflow is. In theory it is simple: one creates artwork, separates it for the plates, then prints it on the press. That is also the clean model when it comes to color models.

No, it’s not.

1. One creates artwork.
2. Artwork is handed off to pre-press.
3. Pre-press converts to (usually) CMYK.
4. Pre-press does colour-matching.
5. Exchanges go back and forth between artist and pre-press over what is accebtable ans what is not.
6. A final proof is agreed on.
7. Colour separation is performed on the artwork.
8. positive of the colour-separated images are burned.
9. The screen or plate is prepared with said positives.
10. You print.

the artists generally do not do the colour matching and separation themselves, and even if they do, it gets redone properly by pre-press anyway.

what about CMYK files
it is a found‐image that goes into a new creative work, for that it needs to be imported and converted to RGB.

Which makes the CMYK overlay useless, which severely impedes the process of reverse colour matching (going from CMYK back to RGB) since GIMP autoconverts CMYK images to RGB upon opening them, all your overlay tells you is how the reconverted image may look like in CMYK. Since there’s no way to have the CMYK and RGB image up side by side, you’re pretty much screwed in this use case.

The third thing to understand is that creative work is on‑screen work. We must focus on the loop that exists between users, the tools they use and the image that appears as a result, again inspiring the next step of users. If I may be so bold: during creative work the image does not exist on disk, or in RAM, it only exists on the screen.

The natural medium of the screen is RGB pixels. That is why I say: creative work is RGB work.

And if that’s what you’re after, why bother with CMYK at all? It certainly doesn’t justify leaving out proper CMYK support if you’re trying to get into pre-press as well – look at Photoshop for example, or Corel Photopaint, both support full CMYK, but neither forces you to use it for creative work.

The second most important thing to understand is that preparing artwork for the printing press means needing total control over the plates.

Even more important to understand is that pre-press does not fall under creative work, you need CMYK for this, there’s no way around it. You need to be able to match colours, there’s no way around it. You need to be able to accurately mix inks, there’s no way around it.

. I am not underestimating what this is going to take: basically the full GIMP functionality, including any plugin.

Which is a lazy way of trying to reason out of porting plugins to the the CMYL colourspace and little more. But even then, why are you using plugins in pre-press?

Turning over the milk carton, I found the marks for a seven‐plate print job, none of which was cyan, magenta, yellow or black.

OMG. So this is where Ohioham got his shitty info, I recognize these arguments! Someone doesn’t know what four colour process means, or that you mix the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key together to produce colours within the CMYK gamut.

Why go through all the trouble of introducing that when it cannot deal with a simple poster, printed in black + orange, or the milk carton?

Because RGB is additive while inks are subtractive? Because you mix Magenta with Yellow to achieve orange? Because you need to be able to mix inks/dyes/pigments/laquers together to achieve those specific colours? Because you need to know which inks to use in which proportions (enter Pantone) to achieve those colours? Because you’re a clueless dipshit whose never done any real pre-press work where people actually give two shits about weather or not the final product looks exactly like the proof does?

Now, I am not saying that GIMP is the application for designing milk cartons,

Design is one thing, preparing for print is an entirely different matter.

but the complexity of printing such a cheap commodity really shows that hardwiring a CMYK mode into GIMP would be a serious case of under‑design.

That statement show that your argument was a serious case of under-design. Stop fucking pretending that the design and pre-press processes are the same thing. If you want GIMP to ber used in pre-press, you make it support CMYK at the bare minimum. You want to it be used seriously, you support CMYK, Pantone and Hexachrome (because CMYK isn’t useful by itself).

This coming from a guy who in another entry rants about product vision: Do you want it to be a designer’s tool, or do you want it to be useful in pre-press, or do you want both?

If the answer to either of the latter two is yes, you need CMYK, and you need colour management. End of discussion, unless you have access to a magical printing press that mixes colours additively. Seriously, just take a moment to think about it, RGB uses green as a base colour. Green is a composite colour, you need to mix blue with yellow to get green, already someone whose been through kindergarten can see a problem with using green as a base colour as opposed to yellow and blue. Hint: Red (Magenta), Blue (Cyan) and Yellow (Yellow) are the primary colours from which all other colours are derived, you don’t need a background in colour theory, design or fine arts to get that, or at least I didn’t think so.

Saying that neither orange nor black are Cyan, Magenta, or Yellow is profoundly supid – again orange is a combination of cyan and yellow, the hue of the orange depends on the proportions of yellow a and magenta thrown into the mix, while the tint depends on the amount of Key thrown in.

Why go through all the trouble of introducing that when it cannot deal with a simple poster, printed in black + orange, or the milk carton?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Apparently you need a university degree to understand how to make orange.

And an little addition to the long pre-press rant, all of this ignores the question of why one would be using bitmaps in such a context instead of vectors to begin with (due to scaling and resolution requirements)

8.5×11″ @ 72dpi (screen) becomes 2.04×2.64 @ 300dpi (non-gloss), 1.024×1.32″ @ 600dpi (glossy/photo) and 0.425×0.55″ @ 1440dpi (certain metals), so obviously, you’d need to scale up the source artwork to be able to print at 8.5×11″. Vectors scale up, Bitmaps do not, and take my word for it, working with a 1:1 scale on something that is intended to print 8.5×11″ at 1440dpi is not a pleasant experience.

The problem with click and hold is that click already does something, there’s no reason to think holding it would cause any other response other than repeated clicks (think a keyboard key, what happens if you hold it? multiple presses).

“can you see why someone who thinks of holding the button down wouldn’t think it is all that horribly unintuitive?”
Of course, but it’s still a bad design choice, it breaks quite a few UI guidelines like immediate response.

“And this is the extreme case because if click and hold drags-and-drops you expect it to drag and drop, not open a new menu.
Much less considering the icons on the dock can be dragged as well.”

This is actually why I originally learned the hold click. On OS X, if you hold a drag-and-drop for an indeterminate amount of time on a folder, it usually triggers an action like opening a folder or, if you hold the drop over a dock icon you get a mini-expose of the windows in order for you to target a drop. In this way, I decided to try holding a click instead of a drop to see if I could elicit the same app-only Exposé.

On OS X, if you hold a drag-and-drop for an indeterminate amount of time on a folder, it usually triggers an action like opening a folder or

I’d forgotten about that, thanks! It’s roughly a 2-3 second delay.

if you hold the drop over a dock icon you get a mini-expose of the windows in order for you to target a drop

That must be new in Leopard or SL, right? (there’s no mini-expose-over-dock feature in Tiger, that I know of).

In this way, I decided to try holding a click instead of a drop to see if I could elicit the same app-only Exposé.

I knew I couldn’t be the only one who expressly tried holding a click to see if it does something, thank you!

@Declination
“This is actually why I originally learned the hold click. On OS X, if you hold a drag-and-drop for an indeterminate amount of time on a folder, it usually triggers an action like opening a folder”
Finally a good reason, although it begs the question as to why you’d drag-and-drop for an indeterminate amount of time on a folder, waiting for a tooltip perhaps?

In the case of the Dock in particular, every previous incarnation (perhaps even all the way back to the NeXTStep dock) of the dock having this sort of behaviour sort of makes me think that current version will also generate that same result on a click and hold.

So, does that apply to someone who has never used the “dock” before? What do you think there is to cause a user to attempt a click-and-hold action aside from some UI specifications that he/she has never read?

Generally, whatever feels sensible at the time sometimes longer periods

You just don’t get it, do ya? What is the reason for anyone to hold down any button for an unknown duration when there is a clear lack of stimulants to encourage the user to do just that? Furthermore, what is the incentive there for an average human being to attempt to hold down a button when a tap of it is apparently giving you a distinctly different behavior in return to begin with? I have never used a Mac before, but even I can tell, given the description of the UI from other commenters here, that there is something in its design that apparently does not sit well with observable human behaviors, and you, on the other hand, are pretty much the only person here with loud enough a mouth to defend it.

Does it indicate how long you are supposed to hover the pointer over something, even?

A mouseover event is supposed to be immediate. In other words, whenever you put the cursor over the associated object, the event is supposed to be triggered instantaneously. Any observable delay in a mouseover event is supposed to be considered a fault unless otherwise specified. And your point is?

I’d chalk it up to there being no established standards or conventions on how a desktop UI should operate way back in 1986, you know back when the concept was still very, very new and everyone was doing things in ways they thought were neat, and that El Stevo figured click+hold made sense.

Consider that outside of PARC. Apple was the first to introduce a GUI to begin with, what conventions and UI guidelines were there to follow?

That’s Steve Jobs’ problem. He is free to believe in whatever hell he wants to believe in, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world does not have the right to beg to differ.

Do you understand why your argument is a red herring now?

You’re absolutely right. The sensible approach to a single mouse button would be to right click instead of clicking and holding the only available button… Oh, wait, never mind.

Let’s say you are attempting to operate a machine with three unlabelled buttons on it. Let’s say you have no idea what event each button is supposed to trigger. How are you supposed, then, to go about finding out what each of these buttons is there for? C’mon – you know the answer, but you just don’t want to acknowledge it.

Or even better, current-day Steve Jobs could have sent Ahnuld back in time to Cupertino in ’86 with today’s standards, conventions and guidelines in an effort to avert having some guy on a blog accuse them of ignoring conventions, standards and guidelines 24 years later.

Again, you are just attempting to bury the problem under some arbitrary paperwork that simply cannot be used as a standard for usability. Really, what is there in some niche conventions and bureaucracies that dictates how a human being is supposed to instinctively behave?

While on one hand it may be breaking UI conventions

Nobody cares, really. Get over it!

Perhaps. But I’m of the mind that you never know. I’m just surprised neither you nor Kerberos stumbled upon it by accident while reorganizing the dock.

And who should, aside from autistic patients?

It’s had this behaviour for as long as 26 years, what reason would someone have to not expect it to still be the case?

Because, honestly, no user wants to give two squats about those “conventions” unless he/she has been following it closely for the past 26 years. Why – what the hell is “NeXTSTEP” anyway to an average Mac user, and why is he/she supposed to pay even a second of attention to it when all he/she wants is to get things done with a computer?

Talking about putting the cart before the horse…

My contention was, from the beginning that it is expected behaviour for a mac user, and follows mac conventions. Evidently this does not apply to a someone who isn’t a Mac user, or a new Mac user, this shouldn’t be as complicated to grasp as you make it seem.

I am not sure about that, but, apparently, it is a convention for Mac zealots to attempt inobviously circular arugments like this to score points.

I provided several examples of situations where people hold on a button and expect a result.

You mean these “examples”?

“- How about monitor calibration or settings?”

I am quite sure the majority of computer users simply doesn’t know how to calibrate a monitor or even know what “brightness” or “contrast” is supposed to mean without consulting the manual first.

“- How about finding a station on a radio with buttons rather than a tuner dial?”

I tried doing that for an elderly once. Fun time that was.

“- How about certain makes of never microwaves or stove/ovens?”

Again, I am pretty sure I wont have any idea how to use them without consulting the manual first.

“- How about video games, I sure no one has ever played, say Contra and thought to hold down on the fire button to autofire the machine gun, and I’m sure nobody figured to hold the B button to run while playing mario, especially come that giant gap that cannot be passed in any other way in world 8, etc.”

Given that I don’t play video games a lot, I can tell you right away that I often find myself repeating tapping actions that can be otherwise replaced with simple pressing-and-holding.

“- Then there’s the gas and brake pedals in a car – certainly nobody thinks to hold down on either, right?”

Unless otherwise told beforehand, then no.

“- I’m I’m sure people with tower PCs with a single power/reset button have never figured out that holding on power, powers down, right?”

Again, unless otherwise instructed, then no.

“- How about Intercoms?”

Ditto.

“- How about door buzzers at apartment buildings?”

Ditto.

“- Even your mocking example of a venomous snake, you’ve never noticed that snake handlers grab and hold from right below the head? Though I’m fairly certain nobody thinks of clicking or double clicking on venomous snakes, either.”

They have all joined the choir invisible, unfortunately.

You evade the question. What compells someone to idly hold their cursor over something in the hopes of eliciting a reaction? Is it because it follows convention and people are accustomed to it, or is it because it is hardwired into the brain?

Because the movement of the mouse triggers a stimulant from the screen in the form of a moving cursor, simply? Even a laboratory chimpanzee knows how that’s supposed to work, I am afraid.

You and two other people on a blog are the rest of the world? Besides the glaring ego problem, I never said that you have to agree that it’s brilliant design, I never even claimed that it was good design, only that it isn’t all that bad

Thanks for the info, Vicky!

Though once again, you are welcome to provide any such guidelines or standards which may have existed in 1986.

Which part of “nobody cares” do you not understand?

It’s not a random machine with unlabled buttons, it’s a fucking computer.

The mouse I am using right now has exactly three unlabelled buttons. And your point is?

- you can explore, putz around and see what they do.

By holding down something for an unknown duration? Despite the lack of deducible stimulants to encourage the behavior? Without being abjectly autistic?

- you can read. It comes with a manual.

Strangely enough, my transition from Windows 3.1 to 95 did not exactly involve reading the manual. All I had to do was to hit the three suckers at the upper-right corner with a click and that’s pretty much it.

- You can ask around. It’s been around for two decvades, people are familiar with it.

Except those who aren’t familiar with the specs, that is.

- You can assume it’s more or less like something else you’re familiar with (but still expect it to have it’s own quirks and ways of doing things) and discover things/learn as you go along.

Despite the fact that there is nothing that even vaguely similar to the Mac click-and-hold actions in, say, Windows?

Actually, it’s an attempt at being funnt.

Then, obviously, someone needs to tell you very frankly that you suck at it or at least remind you to take off those boxing gloves before you type.

Nothing, but this isn’t about human behaviour is it? You’re trying (but failing) to dance around the fact that the statement was addressing the argument that usability guidelines, conventions and standards were being broken when none existed.

Again, which part of “nobody cares” do you not understand?

Then why make the argument?

That, my friend, is exactly what I want to ask you about.

You’re seriously suggesting that no user cares weather or not an app behaves in the same way it did in its previous iteration?

In what way?

What the hell is “System 1-7″ to the average Mac user? What the hell is “MacOS 8 and 9″ to the average Mac user? What the hell is “OSX 10.1″ to the average mac user? What the hell is the release of OSX immediately preceding the current one to the average Mac user?

Absolutely nothing. Null. Zilch. Nada. You honestly want to care about that? Go ahead – it’s a free country. This is not to say, though, that other people have obviously no better things to do than digging up some pointless software history on the Internet.

What the hell are “Windows 95, 98, ME, 2k, XP and Vista” to the average Windows 7 user?

Again, absolutely nothing. Do people out there need to find out some irrelevant bullcrap about Windows 1.0 in order to use Windows 7? I don’t think so.

The average Mac user isn’t someone who switched to OSX last month from some other OS, regardless of what the blogosphere suggests.

The “Get a Mac” ad campaign most certainly did not exist, either – or did it?

They don’t have to. But again, convention doesn’t mean shit to a new user – but it means a fear deal to someone who isn’t a new user.

Wee… BiannualForcedDeathMarch(TM)!!

Except wasn’t click + hold expose introduced in L or SL?

Yes, at least the expose part was introduced in 10.5 or 10.6. Click+hold revealed a menu before that.

I am pretty sure expose wasn’t invented in 1986

It wasn’t. But it’s dock functionality (which predates expose) that has been extended to use Expose because it’s prettier than the old menus. Expose was introduced in Panther. The Dock was introduced in Nextstep.

which means it is only relatively recently that this was introduced.

No, it means that it was extended to use Expose for presentation in 10.5. The functionality itself is dock functionality introduced with the Dock, which was later integrated into Expose.

So how are people meant to know about it? Read the manual?

It’s a dock convention that goes way back. The presentation is new, the functionality itself is ancient.

It’s not discoverable. If only 1/4 of users can find it on their own then it is the very definition of non discoverable.

Make that 2/4, see Declination’s comment. Four is a long way from being statistically significant though.

1) It was a decision made in 1986 that wasn’t great but it’s staying because … well … I don’t know why you’d not fix a bad decision but there you go.

It wasn’t a bad decision at the time. And Windows users don’t expect it really isn’t a good argument against it, in that time frame.

The thing is, I don’t quite understand what or why you’re still trying to convince me of – we agree that it could be improved. Do you continue to argue with people after they agree with you as a habit or do you just <3 me more than others?

‘well they should do something about making it more discoverable”

Again, Kerberos, I conceded some time back that it could stand to be made more obvious to people not familiar with MacOS conventions (though I disagree that “obvious” and “discoverable” are the same).

spend some time on OSX rather than iOS.
You know, I’ve actually only ever used iOS once, for about 5 minutes. I don’t have an iPhone, and my iPod is of the pre-touchscreen shuffle variety (you know, the small cute one with the clip on the back and no screen).

And I’ve already stated that I’ve used MacOS daily since the days of classic MacOS, and that my Macs consist of an iBook and a G5, and that I run Tiger on both – so I’m not sure where you’re getting this “use OSX rather than iOS” shizzle.

OSX has jumped from 1% to near 15% in the last 6-8 years (and often above depending the site),

I remember it being steady at 3-4% for a very long time, even in the early days of OSX. NetApplications currently places MacOS usage (excluding iOS) at 5.16%. These figures suggest that the large majority of mac users are in fact returning users. This month’s Netapp figures also show that Leopard and Tiger users outnumber SL users, which is more of an interesting aside than anything else, though it does suggest that all the “mac faithful” didn’t perform a mass exodus only to be replaced by new users.

Factor in old users who’ve upgraded to SL, and we’re still nowhere near the critical mass where it makes sense to abandon all past conventions.

meaning if something that is only obvious to people who ‘know’ macs then it amounts to a massive failure in usability.

Again, if holding a click on the dock was the _only_ means to keep track of problems, we’d have a serious usability problem – but it isn’t, there are at least 3 other ways to do so. Regardless, we’ve already agreed that it could stand to be more obvious (perhaps by further extending the Dock through the Stacks mechanism – active icons which have multiple active documents associated to them, become Stacks containing said active documents – while of course, preserving the old functionality for the old users at least long enough to ween them off of it)

@John Stamos, JoeMonco:

You’re both arguing about trivia. I don’t know, I try to introduce a serious subject like emacs, and what do I get?

“given the single mouse button, should they have instead turned Aqua into a Emacsesque maze of bizzarre modifier key combinations?”

Emacs is the finest and most intuitive desktop environment I have ever seen. You can be a wus and use a one-, two- or three-buttoned mouse if you want, but that’s because you haven’t Discovered the Joy of Keyboard.

A maze of bizarre modifier key combinations? Puh-lease. All you have to remember is that, when it says “meta,” it means “escape;” and when it says “ctl,” it means “ctrl.”

Since a three year old child can easily discover that the escape key is not a modifier per se, but a key just like any other, and the control key is, in fact, a modifier, I have to conclude that you’re not reaching deep down enough to discover your inner three year old.

An emacsesque maze indeed. Pah! I’ve been using emacs for years, decades even. I’m still waiting for epods and ephones and epads, but the world will soon come round to my way of thinking, I tell you.

The CMYK and pre-press stuff was highly appreciated, however. I may well bookmark this page just for that.

@Kommenter

All very fine and lovely things, but they don’t actually do what emacs does, do they? In fact, I’m given to understand that you can use emacs as a drop-in replacement for their (generally crummy) editors.

Actually, I might be alone in thinking that QTCreator is pretty sucky. And you’ve missed out those noble FOSS alternatives, like Eclipse and NetBeans …

XML macros with no variables that I can see? No thanks. elisp might be annoying, but it does for my needs.

Anybody who thinks that collaborative editing (what dat?) is a good idea is demented, I’m afraid. And anybody who sees project management as a suitable task for an editing tool is doubly demented. In the extreme case (technical project management) I think you’ll find a decent source control system, coupled with a decent bug management system, will suffice. In the typical case (fat useless fuckers who weren’t attractive enough to succeed as a salesman), I think you’ll find that expense-account meals, bogus powerpoint slide shows, and a hastily hacked up spreadsheet are the way to go.

In either case, your choice of editor is somewhat supererogatory.

““collaborative editing *of code*”
What? It might be useless for big projects but it’s awesome for small personal projects.

@John Stamos

Apparently it’s convention for you to resort to attacking the character when you get flustered, it’s okay, you’ll grow out of it.

Flustered? As though you have actualyy been making any sense at all? Sure that’s a pretty high horse to jump onto, isn’t it?

Because nobody has ever tried pressing on those buttons to see what they do? And “brightness” really? People need a manual to figure out what brightness is? I’m pretty sure most people know what brightness is (as in how bright something is, a background in colour theory is not requisite here, nor is a technical manual).

Well, you are welcome to disprove my theory, but I am pretty sure you won’t get far with whatever you are going to attempt.

I’m sure people needed to sift through a manual as well, to figure out what the up and down buttons do

Yep – there are the sunny button, the half-moon button, the ones with two rectangles, the ones with a rectangle with an up-and-down arrow… Oh, excuse me – what’s the one for, um, “up and down” again?

Right. Even the simplest things require instruction, because no one would ever possibly hold down on a button

Why not? Sure the concept of a “button” is hard-coded into the human genome John Stamos’ style. Damn behavioral science – anyone who disagrees with the Stamos is just wrong… Oh, hang on – what is supposed to be your argument again?

Surely anyone who ever used a a TV remote and has ever tried holding down on the volume or channel up/down buttons to see if maybe they can go through several increments, without instruction.

“Anyone”? Are you sure? Because that’s certainly a very bold claim to make, my friend.

Nobody has ever figured out on their own that holding on the power button on a PC powers down.

I rarely swicth off my tower actually, but whenever I have to, all I need to do is to press down the button and the ACPI will just start working its magic. And your point is?

Suddenly I’m picturing you as a child trying to play with one of those remote control cars, flabbergasted at how the other kids are managing to make theirs move fluidly.

I had my first remote controlled car when I was three. It was a pretty big remote for small hands, and there was certainly nothing fluid about my control. What’s more – I actually had my pop holding my hands and telling me which lever was for what. I suppose there was bound to be someone in the orphanage that you grew up in teaching you things in similar ways, but, then again, I may be wrong.

And the cursor moving when you move the mouse somehow compels you to idly hover it over things

Even some birds are found to be attracted to shiny objects. I am pretty sure you, too, can figure out a way to draw a user’s attention to a certain spot on the screen, can’t ya?

That’s right, when in doubt, target the person making the argument, my, how clever you are!

The word “humor” comes to mind.

Explain what you mean by “I never even claimed that it was good design, only that it isn’t all that bad”, by all means. Don’t just whine and cry when someone decides to give you a taste of your own medicine.

I’m not the one who initially brought up guidelines or standards – evidently the person who brought it up cares enough to have brought it up.

But you sure are the one who insists on yapping over and over about it without wanting to stop.

So you’re telling me that you’ve never used a mouse before?

Pfft… You are certainly making plenty of sense here, aren’t you?

Or that it isn’t assumed that labeling the buttons is unecessary as it is (justly) assumed that people know what they do, given that a mouse is a commonplace device in widespread use?

As long as you know how to bash two rocks together, you know what people mean when they say “immediate response”. It doesn’t have to be some spectacular on-screen fireworks. It can be just something as simple as a menu or some “beep” sound from the speaker – anything that indicates the system is indeed responding to the user’s actions. Now, when you look at a Mac, what is actually there to cause you to think that holding down the mouse button will indeed give you a distinctly different action from a simple tap despite the fact that the tap action has already been put there serving as a red herring?

The press-and-hold action on the Mac is a cognitive mess – get over it.

That couldn’t possibly be because certain convention were followed, could it?

You are talking about a cognitive behavior wherein the users have been conditioned, via one way or another, to follow a certain pattern when performing a task. In this case, the learning process is practically non-existent because people are simply using a software system basing on the assumption that what they have already learnt still applies to the newer environment they are in. Actually, I’ll take that back – they certainly will, too, have to gone through a learning process, not in the sense that they are re-discovering how everything is supposed to work, but simply whether what they have learnt from the older environment still applies to the newer one. And, that, my friend, is a completely different ball game we are talking about here.

Where do specs come into the question? Declination and I figured it out on our own without having to sift through specs, it stands to reason that others did as well.

That’s possible. But on the same basis, it also stands to reason that the the hold-and-press action is obscured due to the presence of the drag-and-drop action. Again, the term “red herring” comes to mind. Also, the response from each object in the environment matters, the way objects are presented in the environment matters, and the way each action is actually performed by an individual user matters.

I don’t know about you or Declination. But for the rest here, written documentations are pretty much the only means to discover the action. Like I said, I have never used a Mac, and I am merely saying all this from a bystander’s point of view. If you think I have been unfair to your side of the argument (provided that there is actually one), then maybe you should seriously reconsider the way you have actually presented it.

And again, keep evading the question.

The word “relevance” comes to mind. What’s more, if the abscence of specs means anything, it just means that the action is even less likely to be consistent in the environment and less likely to be discovered by the users. Given the maturity of desktop GUIs in general back in the 80s and the popularity of household computing back then, I think it’s even fair to say that no one would have used a Mac back then without having been properly introduced to its GUI environment as well. Whatever the case, what you are attempting to point out simply does not help with your argument (again, provided that there is actually one).

I wasn’t the one who initially bring up the argument about guidelines, standards, conventions or user expectations.

Then why won’t you stop foaming about it, seriously?

Look familiar?

Certainly. Your expectation that people actually care about “conventions” is simply beyond me. To me, it reeks like the complaints about the ribbons in Microsoft Office not looking or working anything like the old toolbars. At the end of the day, it just jeopardizes progress where it is actually due.

Who said anything about digging up software history? Is it so unfathomable for you to figure that maybe, just maybe people have used previous iterations of the OS and expect some form of similarity in behaviour and operation from one release to the next?

But is a newer GUI absolutely necessary to retain all the behaviours from its older counterparts? What’s more, is it always bound to be unable to retains such behaviours while introducing new ones to the picture? After all, new and old behaviours are not necessarily mutually exclusive, you know?

Who said anything about digging up anything? Are you suggesting that the average Windows 7 user has never used a previous version of Windows?

No, but so what? Upgrading users, at the end of the day, will still have to go through a learning process via experimenting the behavioral patterns they have previously acquired in the new environment. If you are saying that people won’t be able to adapt at all on this basis, then, honestly, you are losing me here.

Why would Windows follow Mac conventions?

Why not? Are the two supposed to be mutually exclusive by nature or something?

Windows follows Windows conventions, shocking isn’t it?

Why not? If the old conventions are crap anyway, then what is the reason for sticking to them aside from potential problems in individual applications?

And so the existence of the get a mac campaign suddenly eliminates everyone who was previously using a Mac?

It does not, except maybe according to John Stamos’ semantics.

Um, yeah, Expecting functionality and behaviour to be retained between releases is the exact opposite of the forced biannual death march.

Actually, I’ll take that back. Your argument is riddled with circular reasoning and there is simply no way for me to predict which way you are trying to head to. If you expect people to at least play along with you, then at least try and put some effort into taking a recognizable stance first rather than just going off into some pointless tangents (like old vs. new users) as though there were any point in any of them. Really, this is getting old and thus far I still haven’t seen anything from you about why everyone is supposed to be forced to stick to the press-and-hold action when using a Mac. I don’t mind debating on trivia, but if you think you can get away from the big picture with that, then think again.

@John Stamos

A theory requires some form of well-substantiated supporting argumentation beyond the statement itself. Saying that you’re pretty sure most people don’t know what brightness is without consulting a manual is neither well-substantiated nor a theory.

Really, Mr. Stamos, is that the best you can come up with? Because, you know, if that occurs to you as something unsustantiated, then you honestly need to… Well, just forget it.

You are still welcome to come up with something – I mean, anything – to disprove my theory, though.

But if you want to play the philosophy game, I’m down. Present me with a theory, and I’ll consider disproving it.

No, it’s just a completely different game called “reading between the lines” – something you are obviously not very good at.

Again, I’m not the one who brought up human behaviour or instincts, it was in fact you, my friend, who brought that up

Certainly. But what makes you think that bringing this up will achieve anything aside from reinforcing my argument? After all, I am not the one here who keeps ignoring the keyword “unfamiliar” here.

Fine. “Most people” then. I can’t think of anyone I know who expressly needed to be told that they could hold down on the button instead of pressing it umpteen times.

That’s still a very bold claim to make. Very, very bold, actually.

Yeah, gotta love that out-of-context quoting. What you haven’t actually been following the discussion you’re taking part in?

Sometimes it’s just best to let someone deconstruct his own argument rather than jumping in right there and there, you know?

I think you’re using drag-and-drop as a red herring. Click-and-hold is distinct from drag and drop.

But how did you or Declination find out the “click-and-hold” thing in the first place, eh? I know you are desperate to try and score points with your “streams of consciousness”, but may I advice you anyway to tread carefully with the word “distinct”?

It’s actually pretty consistent within the OSX interface. Click hold on dock icon reveals associated tasks, holding a drag over a folder opens said folder, holding a drag over the dock reveals associated windows as drop targets, etc.

Yep, I am sure OSX has actually been around since 1984. The phrase “out of context” does indeed come to mind.

In fact, the sample pool is far from being statistically significant, 2/4 mac users taking part in this discussion discovered the functionality in question precisely because it is featured elsewhere in the UI

Quantatively, of course, it’s not really all that significant. But, qualitatively speaking, I think it is still worth a thought.

Presentation is one thing, behaviour is another[... Blahs...]

Again, you are just going off at some pointless tangents without carefully considering what has actually been suggested. Let me ask you a very simple question – in a given OS – just any OS – will implementing a right-click popup menu necessarily affect the behaviors of left-click events at all? Covering up one logical fallacy with another simply does not occur to me as a very good idea, to say the least.

Absolutely? No, but I reckon it is generally preferred that it do so, consistency and continuity are generally considered good design.

But what about when the design is not really all that “good” to begin with? Do you still stick to it regardless?

Of course not, but I never claimed that is was, did iI?

Your beef with Kerby certainly makes me think otherwise, though.

If you’re done countering arguments that I’m not making, perhaps we can have an actual discussion at some point?

Wow, since when have you been attempting a discussion at all? I demand evidence to support this claim of yours.

I am not, I am saying that there is great value in minimizing the learning process

For whom?

While they do borrow each other’s conventions occasionally where it makes sense to do so, some conventions are exclusive to one or the other – for example, anything having to do with the document-centric UI (the global MDI being the most prominent such convention) is of no utlity in Windows as it it is incompatible with the Window-centric design it employs

“Document-centric”, “Window-centric”, “global MDI”, “distinction between an application, a window and a document”… They almost sound as though you were making any sense, except not really. Do you even know what “MDI” is supposed to mean in Windows? Or OSX? Seriously, get a clue.

OK, I think I’ll just stop reading here now. This is the caliber of material that no one really deserves to see anywhere except on Slashdot or Ars Technica. Stupid, uninformed and simply unnoteworthy. Just put a sock in it already, for Pete’s sake.

@John Stamos:

One small issue with “I think you’re using drag-and-drop as a red herring. Click-and-hold is distinct from drag and drop. No dragging is involved. the drag and drop isn’t even initiated on the hold. If nothing else, click-hold is closer to an active hover than it is to a drag and drop (again because no dragging is taking place).”

To non Mac users (and I would have thought to Mac users, although Their Mileage May Vary), click-and-hold is *identical* to drag-and-drop — the fact that the drag approaches zero and the drop is in the same place doesn’t affect the mental map the user has. It’s not particularly close to an active hover, because that’s just a mouse movement and doesn’t involve clicks of any kind.

I think that this is more than just a semantic quibble. Anyway, even if that’s all it is, the issue was about discoverability. This functionality may be discoverable (particularly if you’ve been using Macs for quite some time), but it’s hardly optimally discoverable, is it? Then again, on the all-too-rare occasions I’ve been let near a Mac, I’ve been impressed by the design and presentation of the desktop and deeply confused about how to manipulate it. Possibly it’s just me.

Here’s another thought: I’ve looked at a fair number of event-driven GUIs over the years (Swing, Javascript, Tk, etc), and they all tend to have a rich set of clicky-pointy-draggy-hovery event handlers. Maybe this is part of the issue here. As a *programmer*, I have no doubt whatsoever that I could run quickly through a list of these event handlers before “discovering” that what I need is something like a Beyonce hand-voguing motion, coupled with an SOS morse code click on my single button and an attempt to pick up a mutilated cow before the UFO gets there. (I exaggerate, obviously. Beyonce would never concern herself with cattle mutilation.) This is because I *already know* that there’s an obscure event handler for the process.

As a mere user, I’d feel slightly cheated by such a farrago.

@JS + @JoeMonco
I wish you guys would just list and enumerate the points of dispute. An earlier post on Piestar complained about the difficulty of combing through ’70s style threaded discussions. This one is, if anything, even worse.

(I’m so used to C-x b and C-x C-b that I can’t even spell the damn things right…)

@Kerberos:

Ah! Figured out what you meant by drag and drop re splitting the screen. Pretty neat (if not particularly discoverable. I’m scratching my head as to the metaphor here); I’ll remember that one. Two minor quibbles:

(1) I’d rather have a horizontal split than a vertical split. Then again, I’m aware that this meets expectations on all the Windows editors I’ve ever seen. I just think it’s entirely the wrong thing to do. Never mind; there’s probably a buried option or plug-in or something to force my evilmacsy way on the thing.
(2) “Clone” doesn’t really mean “clone,” does it? Edit one, and the results appear in the other buffer. This is more like quantum entanglement than cloning.

Now, if only they renamed that option “quantum entanglement,” I can certainly see myself falling in love with it.

@Dr Loser
“(2) “Clone” doesn’t really mean “clone,” does it? Edit one, and the results appear in the other buffer. This is more like quantum entanglement than cloning.”

I agree, it’s useless.

“If you want a *real* religious war, of course, you can introduce Notepad++, which brings in Mono and a completely different second front to the war …”

I think you mean WINE, notepad++ is pure Win32.
I’ve honestly considered making a .Net based editor using a nice ribbon interface. Notepad++’s quadrillion menus aren’t the most practical thing in the world.

“Narrowing it down to Linux: people who favour vi would rather swap to gedit, and vice versa, before considering emacs”
Although I don’t really like emacs (it just behaves a bit too different from what i’m used to), I can’t see the point of a CLI editor like vi.

I tell you what, though, if Microsoft ever gets around to licensing the source code for the Office ribbon (at the moment I believe it’s only available in binary format, although it’s free under something called the CTP licence), and if Mono could deal with the XAML configuration, and, well, a few other ifs, this would be a truly superb project.

It doesn’t even have to be a particularly well-featured editor to annoy the hell out of the freetards.

“I tell you what, though, if Microsoft ever gets around to licensing the source code for the Office ribbon (at the moment I believe it’s only available in binary format, although it’s free under something called the CTP licence)”

There’s an open source (Ms-Pl) ribbon available, it’s quite feature rich, missing only keyboard navigation: http://fluent.codeplex.com/
You still need the office ribbon license I suppose, but you can download it without agreeing to it.

“and if Mono could deal with the XAML configuration, and, well, a few other ifs, this would be a truly superb project.”

I guess a really nice editor they can’t copy would be annoying enough

(Incidentally, and thinking about it, I’d remove elisp and replace it with F#. That would work nicely for plug-ins on a Mono platform, and it would be even more annoying.

(Not sure about the viability of this, but whilst thinking about getting F# plug-ins right, I’d recommend the Linux port of PowerShell. Even *more* annoying.)

Talk to the pussy-cat … because the hand ain’t listening.

Yep, I am sure OSX has actually been around since 1984. The phrase “out of context” does indeed come to mind.

The term “straw man argument” comes to mind here. You’ve been doing that a lot. You’d fare better focusing on arguments actually being made, rather than imagining ones that you feel more comfortable with and blathering about how nothing makes sense?

We all know that OSX’s initial release was in ’99-00. The click hold functionality, however was featured prominently in both MacOS Classic (as well as Nextstep and OpenStep), that was retained, and is consistent throughout the OSX interface.

will implementing a right-click popup menu necessarily affect the behaviors of left-click events at all?

Does the OS in question ship as part of an integrated system which features a single mouse button? In this case there’s no question of right or left click events, only of click events. Context is important.

Wow, since when have you been attempting a discussion at all?.

For about as long as you’ve been piling up the straw man arguments.

Do you even know what “MDI” is supposed to mean in Windows? Or OSX? Seriously, get a clue.

Right, I mention “Global MDI” and you bring up a link about application-level SDI vs. MDI. Of course, having not used MacOS, you would not have noticed that as a geberal rule, applications are not constrained to a single window, the finderbar takes over as the main “Window”, turning the desktop into a giant MDI interface.

Remember how early version of Opera (the browser) implemented “tabs” as a set of windows within the main browser window (ie. MDI)? It’s the same idea, and the key is that the finderbar becomes the main “window” all the floating palletes for instanmce that would be bound to the main window, are bound to the finder instead,, that’s why it global-MDI, because it doesn’t happen at an application level, it happens at the desktop level.

Yes, I know, you can’t make sense of that either. How shocking.

It kinda, sorta helps to have at least a passing familiarity with what’s being discussed.

——————-
@ The Good Doctor.

This functionality may be discoverable (particularly if you’ve been using Macs for quite some time), but it’s hardly optimally discoverable, is it?

That was indeed the original conclusion. It’s reasonably discoverable if you’ve been using Macs for a while because it it’s functionality that’s been there forever, and as such is discoverable – you expect that clicking and holding will have a result, and can reasonably assume that doing so on a given UI element will trigger a result.

On the other hand, agreeably it can be made to be more obvious to someone who hasn’t used a Mac before, which makes it less than optimally discoberable for them (after all, what reason would they have to be aware of Mac conventions?)

Am I wrong, however, in suggesting that on the whole it is not all that bad of a design choice, given that there are several much more obvious ways to achieve the same functionality (because holding and clicking isn’t actually required to interact with the UI – kind of like mouse gestures in Opera, those familiar with it swear by it, while those who aren’t get along just fine without them)?

Then again, on the all-too-rare occasions I’ve been let near a Mac, I’ve been impressed by the design and presentation of the desktop and deeply confused about how to manipulate it. Possibly it’s just me.

I guess it varies from person to person, most people I know who start using Macs, mostly laymen, find it remarkably easy to get right into and use, but there’s always a few who’re too used to Windows or [insert other Unix here] and have trouble getting into it. It happens, and it’s normal. I experienced much the same going over to Windows from a Mac and Unix background all those years ago.

As a *programmer*, I have no doubt whatsoever that I could run quickly through a list of these event handlers before “discovering” that what I need is something like…

The “as a programmer” stuff is mostly lost on me, I can’t relate to it. Despite my background in CS, I’m primarily a visual artist/designer who does some programming sometimes, not a programmer. I was mostly into the theory and background, looked as CS very much as something academic because that’s the part of it, the science part of it, that interested me, I didn’t care much for the hands-on stuff, and I still don’t.

As a mere user, I’d feel slightly cheated by such a farrago.

But would you still feel cheated such behaviour was consistent throughout the UI, and you were already accustomed to it, and as such could reasonably expect performing such an action to produce a result? How about if it was an action simple enough to stumble upon by accident? And would you still feel cheated if this action revealed functionality that is also revealed through other, much more obvious means? As in, it’s a shortcut, one of many ways to achieve the same end, not the only way to do something.

Would you still feel cheated, then?

I still can’t shake the thought that it’s more a case of “It’s not like that in Windows” than anything else, consider things that are taken for granted in Windows that you never hear anyone fussing about – would you intuitively figure to hit ctrl+alt+del to bring up the task manager? It’s neither obvious, nor optimally discoverable, (nor is it critical for interaction with the UI – you can use the start menu or shortcuts to launch new apps, and clikc the X, hit ctrl+w, alt+f4, file -> exit, right-click -> close to end tasks) but it’s convention and people who use Windows expect that behaviour. the fact that most people are familiar with Windows conventions doesn’t change any of that, and it’s little more than a red herring – why shouldn’t the arguments work both ways?

I wish you guys would just list and enumerate the points of dispute. An earlier post on Piestar complained about the difficulty of combing through ’70s style threaded discussions. This one is, if anything, even worse.

I think it’s time to do what Kerberos and I did, and simply agree to disagree and this point.

@John Stamos
The term “straw man argument” comes to mind here. You’ve been doing that a lot. You’d fare better focusing on arguments actually being made, rather than imagining ones that you feel more comfortable with and blathering about how nothing makes sense?

You have an argument? Wow, isn’t that news? In fact, this was exactly what I said some posts ago:

‘The word “relevance” comes to mind. What’s more, if the abscence of specs means anything, it just means that the action is even less likely to be consistent in the environment and less likely to be discovered by the users. Given the maturity of desktop GUIs in general back in the 80s and the popularity of household computing back then, I think it’s even fair to say that no one would have used a Mac back then without having been properly introduced to its GUI environment as well. Whatever the case, what you are attempting to point out simply does not help with your argument (again, provided that there is actually one).’

It was you who brought up the lack of specs way back before OSX – not me, so don’t blame other people when someone decides to tear you a new one for it.

Does the OS in question ship as part of an integrated system which features a single mouse button? In this case there’s no question of right or left click events, only of click events. Context is important.

So now you are falling back on the single-button mouse rhetoric again, eh? Seriously, what is the big deal about having one or even two more mouse buttons on the mouse? Nothing. In fact, even Apple has been selling its latest two-button mouse for some time. Don’t know which button to press-and-hold? Try them both. You know the drill, and you know how long you are supposed to hold down the button. You have been, after all, a Mac user all along, remember?

Right, I mention “Global MDI” and you bring up a link about application-level SDI vs. MDI. Of course, having not used MacOS, you would not have noticed that as a geberal rule, applications are not constrained to a single window, the finderbar takes over as the main “Window”, turning the desktop into a giant MDI interface.

You mean this? Boy, isn’t this the most cretinous definition of “MDI” I have ever heard?

Do you know what “explorer.exe” is? When you see a Windows desktop, look down.

Alternatively, choose “My Computer” on the start menu. There’s your “explorer.exe”.

Want to open IE8 in multiple windows? Go to File -> New window and click.

Want to work on multiple documents in multiple windows? Microsoft Office 2007 does that by default.

Want to program an app with multiple windows? If C# or VC++ doesn’t tickle your fancy, try VB or loving Java Swing.

Seriously, you have no idea what you are talking about. Just tell everyone here what your argument actually is and spare the rest of us the trouble of wading through your mindless drivel, or just shut the hell up already. In fact, I’ll even make the first step and tell you what my argument is:

The hold-and-press event is not discoverable by a new Mac user on-screen due to the reasons that 1) there is no recognizible element therein to encourage the user to hold down the mouse button for an untold duration outside the user’s attention threshold and 2) the existence of the hold-and-press event is further obscured due to the presence of the tap event, which is meant generates a functionally irrelevant response on-screen, and the drag-and-drop action, which is also meant for a purpose completely irrelevant to hold-and-press.

Now it’s your turn to shine. Spill the beans, or get lost.

You’re right. They’re exactly the same thing. The finderbar doesn’t act like the main window of an MDI interface does, even though it actually does.

So, is it “yeah” or “no”? Or are you just going to redefine those two words as you fluff along?

No, I had mentioned the non-existence of UI guidelines and standards or conventions at the time MacOS was introduced, after somebody else brought up the arguemnt that UI guidelines, standards and conventions were being broken.

Do I look like “somebody else”? Does blasting Clint Eastwood give you terrifying flash-backs about that “somebody else”? If not, then why fluff to me about specs despite I clearly don’t give two squats about them?

Apparently, you missed out on the parts where i acknowledge several times that this behaviour is less than obvious to new users.

Again, stick to the arguments being made, or really, just shush already.

So, what is you damn argument? People have been asking both you and me repeatedly about it? I have given mine – where’s yours?

Stop dodging the question, already!

@Dr Loser:
“I’m not enjoying being po-faced here. I’m just pointing out that, in usability terms, emacs is pretty much like any other modern editor. Now, vi, on the other hand …”

Sorry, didn’t mean to, and yes, I somewhat overstated my point. Could you live with “Emacs is usability-optomized in a geeky/Quintin kind of usability. Mac OS is usability-optimized in a Joe Average-kind of usability, thus it may be suboptimal for Emacs-users” ?

BTW: I loved the CUA guidelines way back around 1990: Common key commands / shortcuts across apps, both in text mode and in the GUI (OS/2 and Windows) – all this stuff like “Alt (+ highlighted letter) activates menu”, crtl-left and ctrl-right move one word at a time, etc. Couldn’t work with an editor that does this basic stuff different.

(I’ll shoot myself in the foot once more and point out that emacs (first xemacs, but it was carried over) shares the Options disease. I mean, what’s with “Options->Advanced(Customize)->Emacs->Emacs…”? Or with ditto, substituting “Package Tools” for “Emacs…”? These two menu choices between them contain about 90% of the possible things you’d want to do, and they’re utterly confusing.)

Hah! You had plastic AND and OR gates! In my day, all we had was NANDs and NORs!

I think that was when I realised that hardware development was not for me. I could grasp the sheer beauty of building a four-bit half-adder, but my fingers were too stubby. Wise decision. Now we’re down to 80 nano fabs, I’d have to work pretty hard on filing the fingers to keep up with technology.

Ta for the CUA link.

Actually, I hate the entire Menu “standard.” Whatever GUI I’ve built normally doesn’t feature file manipulation, per se, so the ‘most important’ (leftmost, unless you’e semitic or hamitic, and what about a proper menu for Han, eh, which should be vertical down the left hand side) choice — File — is either useless or blatantly misleading. Edit and View are similarly confused. Tools and Options? Hah! Which is which?

“Options” might as well be called “grab-bag.” The fact that it even exists, on most menus, is an admission of defeat. I mentioned the emacs version, which is a perfect example of what I mean (you don’t have to use it: just download it and look), but it’s almost invariably a usability nightmare. Lots of shiny buttons and drop down lists and checkboxes and radio buttons, and they’re all completely orthogonal. “Here’s something I couldn’t be bothered to think about beforehand.”

I can see a simplified “Options” being a good idea. I can see an external configuration tool called, for the sake of argument, emacs_options, being a good idea. Plonking this steaming heap in the middle of an otherwise decent interface strikes me as just an insult to the user.

(Sigh. Wasn’t warned that time. Anyway, what I meant to say was NANDs and NOTs. Obviously, life is simpler with NORs.)

I’m kind of confused about all of this click-and-hold being a standard Mac UI feature. The only thing I could find that responds to click-and-hold in my admittedly old version of Tiger is the menu you get when click-and-holding dock icons, which is what the app-sepcific Expose feature being discussed here is now tied to.

So where else exactly is this OS-wide UI standard for click-and-hold exhibited?

On the other hand, I find a great many things respond to Ctrl+Click by displaying a context menu. Strangely enough, the menu displayed by dock icons is the same as the one displayed by click-and-hold, making the later superfluous in Tiger. I wonder if that’s why they felt it ok to replace it with the Expose feature in Leopard (What does Ctrl+Click do in Leopard BTW?)

And of course if you have a 2 button mouse you don’t even have to be taught the Ctrl+Click thing. You can just discover what that other mouse button you haven’t been using does by clicking it somewhere. And since both work in a wide variety of situations, you’ll hopefully retain the knowledge much more easily.

Your short-term memory has obviously failed you. But that’s OK. It’s not like your argument has any value anyway.

I love when you correct yourself immediately, but people still pounce on the trivial mistake because it suits them, because they just need something to argue about. That’s okay, have fun.

Look, it’s not really that hard to state your argument once more. It’s not even like you can’t just copy-and-paste the relevant text at will.

It’s not as if you can’t scroll up and read, Or is it?

Although, I must admit, the term “circular argument” indeed comes to mind in this respect.

How is your refusual to scroll up and read what’s already there a circular argumernt on my part? Are you literate? Do you have an attention span longer than a few minutes? Nothing stops you from putting those skills to work.

—-
@ DCMonkey

So where else exactly is this OS-wide UI standard for click-and-hold exhibited?

Try holding a drag over a folder, or disk, or mounted disk image

Strangely enough, the menu displayed by dock icons is the same as the one displayed by click-and-hold, making the later superfluous in Tiger.

Pretty much why the whole fuss about it being undiscoverable is moot, there are other, more obvious ways to get that funtionality.

(What does Ctrl+Click do in Leopard BTW?)

I’m still on Tiger as well.

And of course if you have a 2 button mouse you don’t even have to be taught the Ctrl+Click thing. You can just discover what that other mouse button you haven’t been using does by clicking it somewhere. And since both work in a wide variety of situations, you’ll hopefully retain the knowledge much more easily.

Ageed. I imagine it exists simply to accomodate single button mice and trackpads.
—-
@ the Good Doctor

Truth be told, I have nothing against Emacs. It’s just become like a geek pop culture reference for convoluted, I don’t even use it myself (mostly because I haven’t had a compelling reason to try out another text editor. I lean toward Vim on Unix, not because I like it, but because I can ssh into an arbitrary Unix system and can expect Vi or Vim to be there, I can’t expect the same of Emacs that was the main deciding factor for me.

I have no doubt that Emacs’ interface and key combinations are as intuitive as it gets for someone accustomed to it, or who picked it up before the days of the mouse-driven UI, just as with any other UI, discoverability is made moot by familiarity.

“Strangely enough, the menu displayed by dock icons is the same as the one displayed by click-and-hold, making the later superfluous in Tiger.

Pretty much why the whole fuss about it being undiscoverable is moot, there are other, more obvious ways to get that funtionality.”

Not on snow leopard I’m afraid, the per-app expose is click and hold only.

And drag and drop over something isn’t exactly the same thing as click and hold, although I understand why declination considered trying it (you did not provide a reason other than “it’s natural for me”)

Later on you made the point that it’s standard mac behavior to click and hold on the dock. You still had to learn it when it first appeared making this point invalid, “discoverability is made moot by familiarity” right?

@Carsten

Interesting comments about the CUA; I’ve assumed that the File-Edit-View-etc set-up is an actual “standard” for decades now, because absolutely everybody uses it. Clearly nobody thinks very hard about *why* they use it. Chalk another one up to Kerberos’ “Cargo Cult Usability…” in a totally different area!

“I’m kind of confused about all of this click-and-hold being a standard Mac UI feature.”

Click and hold also triggers recent history from the back button in Safari as well.

@Carlos
We’re not expecting Mac OSX to work like windows, we’re expecting it to make sense.
Click-and-hold doing something other that simulate a right click (which makes sense for touchscreens) orsimulating repeated clicks, is just terrible design. You can call it “the mac way”. I call it crap.

More so when the feature is so damn usefull. I should not have to go watch apple videos on youtube (and i’ve yet to find that being done on youtube btw) because I wouldn’t even expect something like that to exist. Not because “I’m used to windows”, but because I’m used to every other freaking interface out there.

There’s no mention of this feature on the manual either.

There is something called HCI, study it, you’ll find out why the dock click-and-hold is such bullshit. (hints: Lack of immediate response, breaks conventions on the same system and others, conflicts with drag-and-drop where you need to click and hold as well, non-discoverable)

@Carlos
Hahahah my friend, I totally agree with you, windows has some very serious issues as well.

The new menu on Office 2010 (i think it’s called backstage or something) is complete garbage.

The new visual studio ui is so slow on my system it’s nearly unbearable (my pc is 3 years old).

Every App looks different, WPF is only making it worse since the standard controls it has (menu and toolbar in particular) look like shit.

Every Expression Something tool has an UI that makes microsoft bob seem practical.

There are quite a few other things that are unnecessarily confusing (I hate everything network related).

And the list goes on and on.

The new windows 7 taskbar is probably one of the best (if not the best) designed pieces of UI i’ve ever had the pleasure of using.
The ribbon when used properly is excellent too.
So it’s not all bad.

Still, you can learn all of them given enough time. I would never have learned the click-and-hold thing unless someone had told me about it (in the comment section of an anti-freetard site no less). It’s in my view a serious design fail, more so considering how useful the app specific expose is.

Oh and yeah, the finder is horrible.