I'm converted! (windowblinds)

[Redestium]

Lets all just take a step back, have a beer, and relax. :)

[#Michael]

Lets all just take a step back, have a beer, and relax. :)

Sounds like a great idea.

[beer time] head off to fridge to get a sam adams [/beer time] :D

[memNOC]

If you feel that WB doesn't conform to fitt's law...then don't use it.

I am not some ignorant person.....I have tried just about every VS program out there including alternative shells.

And I still maintain...to each their own.

And Jesus ****ing christ to you to.  Just because you think it's better period doesn't make it best for everyone.

Try taking your head out of your arse and relaize that everyone has personal tastes.

I think of it in terms of evolution versus creationism.  Each one has it's pros and cons.  Some choose to believe one and not the other.

So just because Fitt's law suggests that having standard layouts for GUI means better productivity doesn't mean you have to use it.  Having a VS (i.e eye candy) is all about making the OS to the liking of the person using it.

hehe you don't want to bring evolution/creationism in this, trust me..

tastes, i do believe in that.. i just find it illogical that someone would actually like something that's harder to do.. again, just stating facts, so no biting..

and how exactly does you trying "just about every VS program out there including alternative shells" automatically negate the possibility of you being ignorant? i lost you there..

stubborn and ignorant, now there's a combo. :D

[#Michael]

hehe you don't want to bring evolution/creationism in this, trust me..

tastes, i do believe in that.. i just find it illogical that someone would actually like something that's harder to do.. again, just stating facts, so no biting..

and how exactly does you trying "just about every VS program out there including alternative shells" automatically negate the possibility of you being ignorant? i lost you there..

stubborn and ignorant, now there's a combo. :D

I am not stubborn or ignorant...I just feel that to each their own.

And I truly feel this debate needs to end.

Everyone including me is entitled to their opinion....whatever that may be.

Also...I have no intention of starting an evolution/creation debate....because I have problems with each of those also and that actually would make a great debate in another forum.

So please for the love of all that's good...can we please end this obviously stupid argument and get back to the purpose of this thread.

[memNOC]

I am not stubborn or ignorant...I just feel that to each their own.

And I truly feel this debate needs to end.

Everyone including me is entitled to their opinion....whatever that may be.

Also...I have no intention of starting an evolution/creation debate....because I have problems with each of those also and that actually would make a great debate in another forum.

So please for the love of all that's good...can we please end this obviously stupid argument and get back to the purpose of this thread.

sure.

it's been fun..

*streaks around the thread* :woot:

[Tim Dorr Veteran]

memNOC stop talking now. Really, stop. You're complete lack of understand of Fitts' Law is quite hilarious to watch, I must say. So, let's clear some things up:

First and foremost, Fitts' Law is a one dimensional law. That is, it applies only directly to movement made in just one dimension. Since the interface you're commenting on has two dimensions, there must now be an adaptation of this one dimensional law to a two dimensional space. It has been proven that when this transition is made, Fitts' doesn't apply quite as well. In fact, it has some failing points (such as hand preference and response times) that make it an imcomplete algorithm for HCI design. So, while you seem to be sticking by it rather fiercly, you should realize it's not all-encompassing and doesn't complete translate directly to the UI.

Next, there's the mis-interpretation of how it *does* apply to the world of user interfaces. Fitts' Law in a nutshell determines the following: The "speed" (read: productivity) of performing an action is a function of the distance to the control for that action and the size of the control itself. As a side effect, screen edges become much better control points because they are essentially one dimensional under this translation. As you move your mouse to a screen edge, you no longer have to worry about one dimension, just the alignment of your mouse in the other dimension. You are correct in your understanding of this concept, but you don't seem to realize that Windows doesn't follow it. However, Mac OS (any version) does follow this basic principle. On the Mac, all application menus are centrally located at the top of the screen. These menus are directly against the edge of the screen, and as a result, have a much lower time to activation them the application menus on Windows. Also, you seem to think the corner of the screen is used as a control point in Windows. It's not. If you move your mouse to the corner of a maximized window, you won't end up closing it, WindowBlinds or no WB. OS X actually does make use of this concept with the programability of the corners to activate various events. Expose, the screensaver and other actions can be set to be activated by the corner of the screen. So, I don't exactly understand why you seem to think Windows uses the corners for control points, but you're not right.

Lastly, you seem to be placing this as a fault of WindowBlinds. Well, the problem is, WindowBlnids is the only system that allows the corner to become a control point. If you make a skin properly, you can make the corner a control point by modifying the location of the window buttons to be in the corner. You cannot do this in MSStyles, as far as I know. Your other, similar complaint was that WB causes smaller control points for window closing, which is simply not true. That is the choice of the designer, not the engineers at StarDock. In fact, SD gets a lot of flack from people complaining about how big the titlebar and it's buttons are in most themes, so I don't see to know how you drew that conclusion..

In any case, I would recommend taking some HCI courses or doing some reading before attempting to make your arguement. It's clear you only have a basic understanding of the concepts and need to sit down and clear up some ambiguities in your interpretations of Fitt's Law.

[#Michael]

sure.

it's been fun..

*streaks around the thread* :woot:

Honestly...it has been fun.

So back to the purpose.....I like when people discover the software that I enjoy also. It gives me the chance to discuss and learn new things about it.

[#Michael]

memNOC stop talking now. Really, stop. You're complete lack of understand of Fitts' Law is quite hilarious to watch, I must say. So, let's clear some things up:

First and foremost, Fitts' Law is a one dimensional law. That is, it applies only directly to movement made in just one dimension. Since the interface you're commenting on has two dimensions, there must now be an adaptation of this one dimensional law to a two dimensional space. It has been proven that when this transition is made, Fitts' doesn't apply quite as well. In fact, it has some failing points (such as hand preference and response times) that make it an imcomplete algorithm for HCI design. So, while you seem to be sticking by it rather fiercly, you should realize it's not all-encompassing and doesn't complete translate directly to the UI.

Next, there's the mis-interpretation of how it *does* apply to the world of user interfaces. Fitts' Law in a nutshell determines the following: The "speed" (read: productivity) of performing an action is a function of the distance to the control for that action and the size of the control itself. As a side effect, screen edges become much better control points because they are essentially one dimensional under this translation. As you move your mouse to a screen edge, you no longer have to worry about one dimension, just the alignment of your mouse in the other dimension. You are correct in your understanding of this concept, but you don't seem to realize that Windows doesn't follow it. However, Mac OS (any version) does follow this basic principle. On the Mac, all application menus are centrally located at the top of the screen. These menus are directly against the edge of the screen, and as a result, have a much lower time to activation them the application menus on Windows. Also, you seem to think the corner of the screen is used as a control point in Windows. It's not. If you move your mouse to the corner of a maximized window, you won't end up closing it, WindowBlinds or no WB. OS X actually does make use of this concept with the programability of the corners to activate various events. Expose, the screensaver and other actions can be set to be activated by the corner of the screen. So, I don't exactly understand why you seem to think Windows uses the corners for control points, but you're not right.

Lastly, you seem to be placing this as a fault of WindowBlinds. Well, the problem is, WindowBlnids is the only system that allows the corner to become a control point. If you make a skin properly, you can make the corner a control point by modifying the location of the window buttons to be in the corner. You cannot do this in MSStyles, as far as I know. Your other, similar complaint was that WB causes smaller control points for window closing, which is simply not true. That is the choice of the designer, not the engineers at StarDock. In fact, SD gets a lot of flack from people complaining about how big the titlebar and it's buttons are in most themes, so I don't see to know how you drew that conclusion..

In any case, I would recommend taking some HCI courses or doing some reading before attempting to make your arguement. It's clear you only have a basic understanding of the concepts and need to sit down and clear up some ambiguities in your interpretations of Fitt's Law.

I have to say that this thread gets more intersting every time I refresh the screen.

[Travesty]

Yeah and kind of a little bit more stupid too :rolleyes:

[memNOC]

ahh.. first of all, i wasn't refering to Fitt's law in its entire definition, which i am sure is quite large and some of it doesn't even apply well to GUIs.. the simple point that i brought up was that in Windows (all Windows versions), you simply drag the mouse to a corner (the upper-right one in this case) and you can be 100% sure that clicking there will close the window you have open..

THIS doesn't happen with WB (i don't care if it's Stardock's or the designers' fault, someone should fix it for GOOD.. and seeing how it's easier for the whole program to apply this change in all skins than to have every designer redoing their work, it's Stardock's fault this isn't implemented) or MacOS (EVERY single MacOS out there)..

again, i know Fitt's law refers in some of its statutes to the size/proportion of the clickable areas, but in the 4 corners case -- specifically for closing down windows, which is the only thing i was talking about since the beginning -- i've seen this behaviour only in Windows using classic/MSStyles..

i don't need to know anything else about Fitt's law to backup my point..

does MacOS/WB close a window when you throw your mouse in a corner? no.

[idkfa]

memNoc: What happens if you don't maximise windows?

[smoke]

Bottom line, in WB that's all up to the skin designer. You can make a skin that fits fitts law (no pun intended) with it even more so than you can with a visual style.

To simply take away the freedom to choose is not the answer and I don't see how it holds up as an argument for visual styles as I don't see any skin that fills up the whole top right with it's close button. As a matter of fact it has about as much space as the old MacOS. This is especially true with themes that are the most popular.

The only UI that I can think of that does is OPENSTEP. WB Version

Edited April 30, 2004 by smoke

[Tim Dorr Veteran]

does MacOS/WB close a window when you throw your mouse in a corner? no.

Beyond eXtraordinariness, pixel8, BlueCurve, Luna (converted) and Simplicia all exhibit this behavior you claim WB doesn't have. So, it seems you're complaining about something that doesn't exist.

BTW, Mac OS doesn't apply because you can't maximize windows completely. Of course, that's a whole different can of worms to open up, but Fitts' doesn't neccessarily apply in it's case towards productivity. It's a bit more involved than this converstaion.

[memNOC]

memNoc: What happens if you don't maximise windows?

then you have yourself a case of OSX: windows don't cover the entire screen size (does Mac even support fully maximized windows?).. and then, you do have to look for that X button..

that's why it annoys me when some programs can't be maximized.. it just takes away the attention off whatever i was doing to look for something i shouldn't even think about..

IMO, GUI interaction should be spontaneous, with the least amount of thinking/looking as possible.. that setting alone increases productivity by allowing the user to focus more on the task at hand, than interacting with the computer.. and with OSX, i just ain't having it.. constantly having to look where i click (what's with the perfectly contoured icon-clickable area?? i have to click EXACTLY within the picture, wtf), the lack of tabbing in menu's (to choose "Yes", "No", "Cancel", not in forms), having to click EXACTLY on the selected item in a drop-down menu, or else the whole thing will disappear and i'll have to start the selection process all over.... etc, etc, etc.. little things like that really bug me down when working with Macs (i was describing OSX, specifically, here, but in most cases, OS9 and prior is worse).. so now, after years of leading the design industry, they "invent" Expos?, which is basically the rich-man's version of winkey+d/winkey+m/shift+winkey+m, a graphical alt-tab menu, and they think they've revolutionized computing.... give me a break.

and sorry for the off-topic thing, but i just kept on going..:DD

just saw your post timdorr, and YES, man i know there are some WB skins that certainly do this, but this is a design law, not some preference of some stupid guy with a Cobain av, so i feel it should be included in the program responsible for rendering these themes..

(should we make a thread about the Mac thing?:unsure:)

[caerma]

the right is right...

[forster]

Glad you are happy with it - my personal opinion is that WB blows bigtime, but I am glad for you.

Ive the whole license for Stardock apps and wish I liked WB, unfortunately, I dont.

[#Michael]

Glad you are happy with it - my personal opinion is that WB blows bigtime, but I am glad for you.

Ive the whole license for Stardock apps and wish I liked WB, unfortunately, I dont.

And my personal opinion is that standard msstyles blow big time. They lack originality, imagination, creativity, and thoughtfullyness. Most of the time this is not the fault of the author but rather the limitations of msstyles.

[forster]

And my personal opinion is that standard msstyles blow big time. They lack originality, imagination, creativity, and thoughtfullyness. Most of the time this is not the fault of the author but rather the limitations of msstyles.

Cool - Id have to agree with you on that one. Personally I havent found a msstyle that I would keep 24/7.

I'll probably be hated for this, but I much prefer a command prompt any time, that way I can initiate single commands (or batches) and know that all that is happening is the command that I enter, at my own expressed parameters.

There are ups and downs for everything, but WB has never 'caught me', its just missing something that I cant put my finger on.

[#Michael]

Cool - Id have to agree with you on that one. Personally I havent found a msstyle that I would keep 24/7.

I'll probably be hated for this, but I much prefer a command prompt any time, that way I can initiate single commands (or batches) and know that all that is happening is the command that I enter, at my own expressed parameters.

There are ups and downs for everything, but WB has never 'caught me', its just missing something that I cant put my finger on.

Finally...two people in this thread agree about something.

As for a command prompt.....that was good back in the day....but I want more now.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Look, i dont want to start any arguments here but this is a fact, WindowBlinds is slower than MSStyles, it might not be by much but it is slower

WindowBlinds put's your system on Windows Classic then installs a global system hook to catch all the drawing commands, it doesnt stop windows from doing any drawing at all, so every button, titlebar etc. (you get the idea) is actually drawn twice, this means that window clasic is drawn first, than windowblinds re-draws every thing over top

MSStyles is only drawn once, nothing is drawn underneath, this allows a skin done in MSStyles to be finished drawing in half the time it takes for a WindowBlinds skin to draw. This means that every time a window is drawn, The currently selected theme is drawn, nothing else

The fact that WindowBlinds installs a system hook is what makes it good, as well as bad, Microsoft has acknoledged that installing system hooks slows any (yes, any) system down, you might not notice it but it does slow it down. But his hook also means that it will skin 16-Bit apps. MSStyles wont skin 16-bit apps because it is a part of the 32-Bit user interface bits, which 16-bit apps dont link to.

Im not saying that you shouldnt use it, if you like it, use it, if you dont, dont. If you got that latest 3.6Ghz AMD 64 FX-53 with a ATI Radeon x9800 with 64 bit every thing, you wont notice a speed difference between WindowBlinds or MSStyles, but if you have a 600Mhz Pentium 3 with 64MB, you will, but then you should be using theming software.

Edit: this is to jonkun, ill say sorry for everybody who turned this thread into a WB vs. MSStyles argument (i suppose i even did it as well), congrats on getting it and i hope it doesnt give you any problems.

Edited April 30, 2004 by The_Decryptor

[icecaveman]

I have the close button 2x size of default buttons ( you could NEVER do such things with msstyles), right-clicking on the title bar minimizes windows, double clicking maximizes. The close button is in top right corner, next to it is a minimize to tray button and then always on top. I don't use mimimize or maximize buttons as that is acomplissed in other way. To get similar resaults using msstyles I would have to run few additional programs slowing the computer much more. Sometimes I don't even use the close button but rather use a program that makes Escape close buttons or I could press F6 on my keyboard when the F Lock is on...

[smoke]

Look, i dont want to start any arguments here but this is a fact, WindowBlinds is slower than MSStyles, it might not be by much but it is slower

WindowBlinds put's your system on Windows Classic then installs a global system hook to catch all the drawing commands, it doesnt stop windows from doing any drawing at all, so every button, titlebar etc. (you get the idea) is actually drawn twice, this means that window clasic is drawn first, than windowblinds re-draws every thing over top

MSStyles is only drawn once, nothing is drawn underneath, this allows a skin done in MSStyles to be finished drawing in half the time it takes for a WindowBlinds skin to draw. This means that every time a window is drawn, The currently selected theme is drawn, nothing else

The fact that WindowBlinds installs a system hook is what makes it good, as well as bad, Microsoft has acknoledged that installing system hooks slows any (yes, any) system down, you might not notice it but it does slow it down. But his hook also means that it will skin 16-Bit apps. MSStyles wont skin 16-bit apps because it is a part of the 32-Bit user interface bits, which 16-bit apps dont link to.

Im not saying that you shouldnt use it, if you like it, use it, if you dont, dont. If you got that latest 3.6Ghz AMD 64 FX-53 with a ATI Radeon x9800 with 64 bit every thing, you wont notice a speed difference between WindowBlinds or MSStyles, but if you have a 600Mhz Pentium 3 with 64MB, you will, but then you should be using theming software.

Edit: this is to jonkun, ill say sorry for everybody who turned this thread into a WB vs. MSStyles argument (i suppose i even did it as well), congrats on getting it and i hope it doesnt give you any problems.

I don't know where you get your information but it is not true. Most any program that customizes windows uses hooks. The only difference in the past is that ms styles allowed the window to paint it'self before it was done. With WB it didn't until it was done this was the case in the past, not anymore. It's a simple fact that something has to be overridden because the only truly native interface in windows is classic. Anything else is just additional.

It's a fact that windows in general has to refresh when you move a window. That's something that's to be fixed in longhorn with it's compositing engine (OSX style). You might not notice it but it happens.

WB doesn't skin 16-bit applications. It's not a part of the 16-bit interface in any way either. EFX did.... the command prompt in XP is a 32-bit protected window which they found out how to skin the border (not the same as the other windows) so it doesn't count as skinning a 16-bit window.

Only MacOSX does it from scratch, or the x11 protocol where you can change your window manager\toolkit.

Edited April 30, 2004 by smoke

[#Michael]

I don't know where you get your information but it is not true. Most any program that customizes windows uses hooks. The only difference in the past is that ms styles allowed the window to paint it'self before it was done. With WB it didn't until it was done this was the case in the past, not anymore.

It's a fact that windows in general has to refresh when you move a window. That's something that's to be fixed in longhorn with it's compositing engine (OSX style). You might not notice it but it happens.

WB doesn't skin 16-bit applications. It's not a part of the 16-bit interface in any way either. EFX did....

Only MacOSX does it from scratch, or the x11 protocol where you can change your window manager\toolkit.

Trust me when I say that I don't have a top line system and for sure think WB is faster and better

Athlon XP 2 ghz

512 ddr333 ram

gf 4 mx440 64 mb 8x agp

As you can see, mine is a good system but by no means great.

WindowBlinds put's your system on Windows Classic then installs a global system hook to catch all the drawing commands, it doesnt stop windows from doing any drawing at all, so every button, titlebar etc. (you get the idea) is actually drawn twice, this means that window clasic is drawn first, than windowblinds re-draws every thing over top

MSStyles is only drawn once, nothing is drawn underneath, this allows a skin done in MSStyles to be finished drawing in half the time it takes for a WindowBlinds skin to draw. This means that every time a window is drawn, The currently selected theme is drawn, nothing else

That's not true. The windows classic 'theme' is the windows default with the theme engine turned off. So windows doesn't have to draw anything because it's not using the skinning engine. By using WB with the theme service turned off, you don't draw everything twice.

It's people like you who spew half truths and lies about WB that turns a simple thread like this into an all out mud fight.

[smoke]

Oh yeah, and for the record, neither theming system paints the window twice.. until you move the window and it has to refresh (like if it's covered).

[Tim Dorr Veteran]

Look, i dont want to start any arguments here but this is a fact, WindowBlinds is slower than MSStyles, it might not be by much but it is slower

WindowBlinds put's your system on Windows Classic then installs a global system hook to catch all the drawing commands, it doesnt stop windows from doing any drawing at all, so every button, titlebar etc. (you get the idea) is actually drawn twice, this means that window clasic is drawn first, than windowblinds re-draws every thing over top

Uh, how do you think MSStyles works? It's the *exact* same processes. That's why uxtheme.dll attaches itself to every process in the system.

MSStyles is only drawn once, nothing is drawn underneath, this allows a skin done in MSStyles to be finished drawing in half the time it takes for a WindowBlinds skin to draw. This means that every time a window is drawn, The currently selected theme is drawn, nothing else

While this is flaw because of my above statements, WB also features something called HyperPaint. What that does is basically remove redundant drawing calls from the system. MSStyles performs these extra draw requests, WB does not. Also, the way the system hook works, it *intercepts* the drawing command. It never gets to actually draw the window with Classic. This is true for both MSStyles and WB.

The fact that WindowBlinds installs a system hook is what makes it good, as well as bad, Microsoft has acknoledged that installing system hooks slows any (yes, any) system down, you might not notice it but it does slow it down. But his hook also means that it will skin 16-Bit apps. MSStyles wont skin 16-bit apps because it is a part of the 32-Bit user interface bits, which 16-bit apps dont link to.

MSStyles doesn't draw for 16-bit apps (and a lot of 32-bit ones) because it takes the "safe route" to skinning. It checks if the app has been made "theme-aware" by it's authors. If not, it just doesn't skin it. WB takes the route of trying to skin anything that's capable of it, regardless of if the program author has made it aware of themes.

Im not saying that you shouldnt use it, if you like it, use it, if you dont, dont. If you got that latest 3.6Ghz AMD 64 FX-53 with a ATI Radeon x9800 with 64 bit every thing, you wont notice a speed difference between WindowBlinds or MSStyles, but if you have a 600Mhz Pentium 3 with 64MB, you will, but then you should be using theming software.

I beg to differ. UIS2 themes are probably for the higher end machines, but UIS1 are just about nearly as fast as Windows Classic in that they have EXTREMELY low overhead (lower than Classic's drawing time, actually because it's just copying bitmaps directly without layout, versus drawing lines to build the interface). I used it on the POS machine they gave me for an internship a few years back that was a 400Mhz P3. Worked better than Classic without the crap of XP.