zhangm Supervisor Posted July 11, 2005 Supervisor Share Posted July 11, 2005 A point-and-click user will always be slower than someone who uses keyboard shortcuts. Once you're used to the keyboard, you don't need to think. If you need something done, you simply hit the right keys to do it. CTRL + C/V easily become natural. You learn them as you do touchtyping. That's why Expose isn't slower than a taskbar - not to mention that giving thumbnails and captions of the selected windows is far better than providing a taskbar entry with shortened text. As for the dock, it's still better than the taskbar as far as giving you the information you need to figure out which minimized window you need. First of all, the dock only displays minimized windows, while the taskbar displays all windows open or minimized. The taskbar will group windows together into one entry by program. The dock doesn't. If it needs more space, the taskbar will shorten each entry, including text. The dock makes each thumbnail smaller, but doesn't truncate the text. Both can be hidden. The point is that the OSX dock is superior in presenting visual cues to help the user identify applications and minimized windows, and its method of coping with limited space is better than WindowsXP. Taking up vertical space? So what? Hide it, or resize it. You can always take advantage of the magnification feature. Mind finding the picture I have open in this screenshot? It's a 800x600px blue rectangle being displayed in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbo11883 Posted July 11, 2005 Share Posted July 11, 2005 uhh................. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BajiRav Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 A point-and-click user will always be slower than someone who uses keyboard shortcuts.? Once you're used to the keyboard, you don't need to think.? If you need something done, you simply hit the right keys to do it.? CTRL + C/V easily become natural.? You learn them as you do touchtyping.? That's why Expose isn't slower than a taskbar - not to mention that giving thumbnails and captions of the selected windows is far better than providing a taskbar entry with shortened text. expose and taskbar are not comparable. both have different functions. windows' equivalent to expose is alt+tab (cmd+tab is different, not the same) or the xp power toy. As for the dock, it's still better than the taskbar as far as giving you the information you need to figure out which minimized window you need.? First of all, the dock only displays minimized windows, while the taskbar displays all windows open or minimized.? The taskbar will group windows together into one entry by proThe dock doesn't.9;t.? If it needs more space, the taskbar will shorten each entry, including text.? The dock makes each thumbnail smaller, but doesn't truncate the text.? Both can be hidden.? because the dock doesn't show all windows, only minimized once. The point is that the OSX dock is superior in presenting visual cues to help the user identify applications and minimized windows, and its method of coping with limited space is better than WindowsXP.? Taking up vertical space?? So what?? Hide it, or resize it.? You can always take a magnification feature. n feature. Mind finding the picture I have open in this screenshot?? It's a 800x600px blue rectangle being displayed in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. 586193975[/snapback] the dock magnification IMO is totally useless. more of a marketing toy than anything useful. the OSX dock feels superior if you club it with expose. without expose its one big problem. also more often than the crowded taskbar can be useable if you notice that default XP theme and icons go a long way in differentiating open windows in terms of "visual clues". although this is at best a stop gap measure to the said problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jm1234567890 Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 expose ;) Have you tried to use expose with alot of windows open? Everything looks the same... The icon and title really needs to be constatly displayed rather than only shown when you hover over with the mouse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fukachu Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 and i could say to you have you tried using alt+tab or the task bar with many windows open.. everything looks the same. i can honestly say that i haven't experienced what your saying about everything looking the same in expose and i can have a lot of things open at once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zionyx Posted July 12, 2005 Share Posted July 12, 2005 TaskSwitchXP... makes it so much easier to switch programs. Relativity: A problem with your reasoning... The target is always the same width. Its always been the same height. In going from normal to sidebar style, youve changed the 'width' from the true width to the height. The width is still the same in both of those, as is the height... but you do physically have more space. Another quick fix: Unlock the taskbar. Make it 3 rows high. Lock it. Whats so bad about that method? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
berger Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 A new shell? As in a new UI? Hmm didn't we already know that there would be a new UI -> Aero? Pardon my ignorance but what is the distinction between a new UI and new Shell? (The new UI not being just new colors but different ways of displaying/using information/resources) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#Michael Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 A new shell? As in a new UI? Hmm didn't we already know that there would be a new UI -> Aero? Pardon my ignorance but what is the distinction between a new UI and new Shell? (The new UI not being just new colors but different ways of displaying/using information/resources) 586208105[/snapback] A new shell would replace explorer (how you navigate windows). A GUI is how see the shell. Hopefully I didn't confuse you more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PyX Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 How will they do a new shell? There aren't 3000 ways of making a new shell... :s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#Michael Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 How will they do a new shell? There aren't 3000 ways of making a new shell... :s 586208196[/snapback] That Project M group makes it sound like they are creating one from scratch. Don't know if it will ever be something we will see...hopefully it will make it into LH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axel Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 Exciting stuff. I can't wait. I hope that a lot of effort goes in to making this shell perfect - with a previous 10 years using similar variations of the Windows shell through from '95 to XP, I should hope they've come up with something which as equally revolutionary as the taskbar was in Windows 95, or the Dock in OS X. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ev0| Posted July 13, 2005 Share Posted July 13, 2005 I can see it now. A big 'M' flies up from the bottom of the screen and all kinds of glass windows and shell things fly out on demand... PROJECT M --- PHEAR :cry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
berger Posted July 14, 2005 Share Posted July 14, 2005 A new shell would replace explorer (how you navigate windows). A GUI is how see the shell. Hopefully I didn't confuse you more. 586208129[/snapback] Thanks but I still don't get it. What does it mean "how you navigate windows", by clicking icons and using the address bar right? And that is what Aero is changing, IE a breadcrumb trail instead of address bar, preview pane at the bottom, etc. So it seems to be the same thing... :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zhangm Supervisor Posted July 14, 2005 Supervisor Share Posted July 14, 2005 Relativity: A problem with your reasoning...The target is always the same width. Its always been the same height. In going from normal to sidebar style, youve changed the 'width' from the true width to the height. The width is still the same in both of those, as is the height... but you do physically have more space. Another quick fix: Unlock the taskbar. Make it 3 rows high. Lock it. Whats so bad about that method? 586200831[/snapback] Well, true, the button is always the same width, and the same height, but I still see nothing wrong with my reasoning. The direction that you move your mouse in order to reach the buttons matters. I have the taskbar at the top. The buttons are arranged horizontally. When I move my cursor up to reach the buttons, my target area is the width of each button. If I have my taskbar on the right side of the screen, then I must move my mouse to the left in order to hit a button, and my target area in that case, would be the height of each button. If you want a real world illustration, imagine two logs. Both have the same diameter and length. One is positioned so that you face one of the flat ends of the log, so that you see the diameter. The other is placed so that you face the side, and are looking at the length of the log. You're trying to say that since the logs are equal in diameter and length, it would be equally easy to hit either log with an arrow. But that's not true, because you're approaching the logs from different directions, and from certain directions, they present you with less area to hit. Your proposed quick fix is nice, but god dammit, when the hell are we going to have an unobtrusive, yet functional and usable interface? I don't want to deal with three rows of buttons, because that requires thinking about an x,y coordinate plane. I'll stick with my single row, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeydoo Posted July 14, 2005 Share Posted July 14, 2005 Maybe I didn't explain it well. The monitor or the resolution will not dictate the size of the UI. That means if you have a flat panel or a CRT which can only do 1280x1024 then you will be able to increase/decrease the size of windows, buttons, taskbar, video, webbrowers to whatever you want. You can look at the same exact screen as some one with a flat panel with 2560x1600. Their monitor will just be of a higher detail. That means if you want more screen real-estate you can have it, but if you're old and need everything bigger then you can increase it. That will mean you can keep your monitor longer, make better use of it, and then wait until it burns out. It will also apply to individual "windows" so you can shrink windows down and put them on top of something you are working on. I think it will be the only thing that puts longhorn ahead of OSX. Unless apple make OSX vector based in cheetah. They will make the change as well. 586192814[/snapback] This is what I wrote on the last page and no one seemed to notice as there was lots of talk about UI features. What I read a while ago was that the new Shell would be vector based, not bitmap based as it is now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wankey Posted July 14, 2005 Share Posted July 14, 2005 The OSX Dock is the most biggest piece of bloat ware ever invented. Magnificantion is totally useless, other than a selling tool. It does NOT organize your programs what so ever. In fact, the dock shifts when you add new or minimize programs. Also, it's the biggest real estate hog ever. There are lots of people in the Mac community who are disgrunted with the OS X Dock. (Don't even let me get started with the finder) Windows is good, stop complaining. Organization hell? Who told you to multitask. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fukachu Posted July 14, 2005 Share Posted July 14, 2005 i cant see how the dock is bloat or a space waster as it can be hidden and made bery small and with cleardock you can have no background, have it in the corner and many other things. finder with spotlight is much better then without and i dont find it at all difficult to use.. and i sue windows comptuers all day at work. I find the mac layout easier to pick up and navigate then the windows one when many applications are open. while you say there are lots of people disgrunted with the dock you forgot to mention that that is still a small percentage of people. its like saying in the world there are a lot of people called David. yes there are but compared to the number of people in the world its still a small amount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonkeyClaw Veteran Posted July 15, 2005 Veteran Share Posted July 15, 2005 The OSX Dock is the most biggest piece of bloat ware ever invented. Magnificantion is totally useless, other than a selling tool. It does NOT organize your programs what so ever. In fact, the dock shifts when you add new or minimize programs. Also, it's the biggest real estate hog ever.There are lots of people in the Mac community who are disgrunted with the OS X Dock. (Don't even let me get started with the finder) Windows is good, stop complaining. Organization hell? Who told you to multitask. 586214949[/snapback] :rolleyes: the dock is amazing, i use it everyday and i really cant see how it is bloated. and anyhow i use expose to organize my programs. so my advice is actually TRY os x before you flame it ;) as for project m, well this shoudl be interesting. windows has needed an update in this area so hopfully this should help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidnightDevil Posted July 15, 2005 Share Posted July 15, 2005 I actually hope for some sort of light silver or grey scheme.The difficulty with darker themes (Aero) is that nothing else is designed to complement them. Humans just don't work on dark environments. You have MS Word, MS Excel and 98% of the web displaying black text on a white backdrop. That sort of contrast will simply do your eyes in, in a short amount of time. It is very visually fatiguing, no matter how cool or awesome Aero/Glass looks like. Microsoft needs to get away from the big bulky Start Menu and especially the taskbar. Taskbar was fine in the days of Windows95 because no one had enough RAM to have 31 different program windows open. But now we have Winamp/WMP/iTunes, Photoshop/Gimp, Firefox/7 IE windows/Opera/, 3 Word documents, 1 MS Access document, 2 spreadsheets, 5 MSN Messenger conversations, 2 mail messages to respond to in Outlook, and you're trying to transfer files over the network, using 2 Windows Explorer windows to navigate. Your taskbar buttons are 10 pixels wide and only show the icon and first letter of each open window. You are in Organization Hell. 586190398[/snapback] you're geminis aren't u ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
futb0l Posted July 16, 2005 Share Posted July 16, 2005 I actually hope for some sort of light silver or grey scheme.The difficulty with darker themes (Aero) is that nothing else is designed to complement them. Humans just don't work on dark environments. You have MS Word, MS Excel and 98% of the web displaying black text on a white backdrop. That sort of contrast will simply do your eyes in, in a short amount of time. It is very visually fatiguing, no matter how cool or awesome Aero/Glass looks like. Microsoft needs to get away from the big bulky Start Menu and especially the taskbar. Taskbar was fine in the days of Windows95 because no one had enough RAM to have 31 different program windows open. But now we have Winamp/WMP/iTunes, Photoshop/Gimp, Firefox/7 IE windows/Opera/, 3 Word documents, 1 MS Access document, 2 spreadsheets, 5 MSN Messenger conversations, 2 mail messages to respond to in Outlook, and you're trying to transfer files over the network, using 2 Windows Explorer windows to navigate. Your taskbar buttons are 10 pixels wide and only show the icon and first letter of each open window. You are in Organization Hell. 586190398[/snapback] I totally agree. I want a minimalistic theme that looks good with all applications, Luna is too ugly and bulky in my opinion. And I don't agree with black themes, it just looks ugly with other applications. Most applications uses a light background, so I hope they go with a silver aero. Microsoft needs to make a new desktop environment to suit the modern computing lifestyle. They also need to make a better Windows Explorer and the "Browse" or "Open File" dialog. I want an easier file browsing system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoDaddy Posted August 14, 2005 Share Posted August 14, 2005 I remember seeing some test site that had different screen layouts MS had been working on. I can't find it now, but they had different screen areas in one test where if you moved an application window it successively became smaller until it was just a icon. So applications you aren't working on that much would be icons, applications you are working in and out with are only a little smaller than the original window, and then you have the applications you're currently working with. It would work great for a widescreen monitor. The point is that we just haven't seen any real differences in the way OSs handle application windows, and it was really refreshing to interact with windows in a different way than normal. Also MS has a lot more up its sleeve than people give it credit for. There's a reason that they spend billions of dollars on research and it isn't because they want Notepad to have a glass border. Backward compatability prevents the most revolutionary changes, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Jackson Posted August 14, 2005 Share Posted August 14, 2005 Is Vista going to be worth the money? I'm reading that alot of people aren't too hip on Vista. Sure it has a nice visual appeal, new look but with DRM being brought into the fold...save up your WinXP stuff for future use. :yes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagamer34 Posted August 14, 2005 Share Posted August 14, 2005 I just don't want Vista to end up being Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoDaddy Posted August 14, 2005 Share Posted August 14, 2005 I think that any speculation on what Vista will be is moot at this point - no one, arguably even the head honchos at MS, know exactly what Vista will be until it happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcv Posted August 14, 2005 Share Posted August 14, 2005 I just don't want Vista to end up being Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3. 586374277[/snapback] And it won't be, so don't even start to worry about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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