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That’s it, we’re quitting

design.canonical.com

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Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#71

Post by markkanof »

extension wrote: post #10

Awesome. Next, get rid of "Save", which is an even bigger problem.

I think your overall point is solid, that the application (or os) should be making sure it always has a saved state of my document.

But...there would still be a need for a way to specify where the document should be stored on the filesystem. For instance when writing software, files have to go in specific places. The file can't just be saved anywhere, or in some application specific bucket, I need to be able to specify the location.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#72

Post by neutronicus »

ams6110 wrote: post #33
mycroftiv wrote: post #12

I get so frustrated reading blog posts by user interface designers. They almost invariably consist of reasoning I disagree and conclusions I disagree with in support of user interface decisions that make my experience as a user worse. Ubuntu Unity is pretty much an anthology of user interface decisions that are exactly wrong by my perception, and "lets get rid of quit" is just another one. Of all the actions in any m…

rearranging the furniture in the middle of the night so people trip over the couch when they are walking to the bathroom Exactly how I felt about the "new" Microsoft Office UI and the straw that broke the camels back on my continued use of that software.

I went back to Office (after switching to OpenOffice) when the ribbons came out.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#73

Post by hristov »

zoul wrote: post #60
extension wrote: post #10

Awesome. Next, get rid of "Save", which is an even bigger problem.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/ “Say good-bye to manual saving. Auto Save in Mac OS X Lion automatically saves your work — while you work — so you don’t have to. Lion saves changes in the working document instead of creating additional copies, making the best use of available disk space. The lock feature prevents inadvertent changes from being saved and automatically locks documents after two weeks. And the revert…

So instead of "save" which seemed rather simple to me, you have to learn two new features such as "lock" and "revert", which do not seem so simple to me.

Oh and also, now you have no idea what data is saved in your documents. Your documents can carry in them hidden past versions without you being aware of it. Which can prove very embarrassing in many business situations. Which means that anyone that handles sensitive data will have to create or buy complex new software that scrubs all documents of old data. (this is already an issue with Microsoft Word and its proclivity to save all kinds of dangerous metadata).

So when before you merely had to save stuff, now you have to worry about reverting, scrubbing, etc. Thank you GUI elves.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#74

Post by neutronicus »

lukeschlather wrote: post #14

Getting rid of quit/close requires the user to learn entirely new metaphors every time they use a program in order to know how to get a program to stop taking up resources. In a system with effectively limitless resources this is fine, but in lower specced systems, not so much. Also "effectively limitless" means equivalent to the specs of the worst system the designers use, which will likely skew things. Where I'm si…

As someone who has used Matlab, and someone who has used Eclipse, you can take my "get your fat ass out of RAM already" command when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#75

Post by michaelcampbell »

mgkimsal wrote: post #49
michaelcampbell wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have SSD's. In RAID-0 striping mode. You still notice it.

That's a bit depressing to hear. The SSD perf I've seen on laptops seemed great, but I suspect that in conjunction with slower memory, we'll still see issues. :/

Yes, I agree. I'll caveat my original statement by saying this; I use Windows (work machine), and I'm using the SSD's they gave me, so they may not even be good ones.

That said, I can come nowhere near the performance of a video where some guy wired up a bunch of SSD's, then opened every microsoft office application at once and they just popped up on his screen. Some crude timings below (in seconds; time to open from the "Start" menu, till the hourglass morphs back to an arrow):

Word: 3 Excel: 2 Outlook: 5 OneNote: 1 PowerPoint: 2

Emacs: 2 (had to throw that in)

Now, you may be saying "DUDE! That's awesome!" and yes, it is, compared to platters. But it's not instantaneous, and as soon as your context readjusts, you still notice the startup time.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#76

Post by michaelcampbell »

smokinn wrote: post #69
cdawzrd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your task killer might be hurting your battery life rather than helping it. In any case, in recent versions (2.1+ I think), Android is better at managing tasks than a third-party app, and overzealous background task killing doesn't help anything. http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-wi...

I heard this as well so when I got my android I didn't install one. But the battery life was horrible. Often, if I used the phone regularly during the day the battery would be dead by 9-10pm. I installed a task killer and killed everything when it booted up and killed a couple times a day. After that I suddenly have ~1.5 days worth of battery available. I'm not sure which app was being such a hog (I suspect it's an a…

You're killing a mosquito with a howitzer, and you may have better battery life by letting Android do what it's supposed to, and find the offending application.

Download "Spare Parts", go into its battery history section, and select "partial wake usage".

You'll find out what (if any) app is keeping your phone in partial wake lock status.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#77

Post by weaksauce »

tvon wrote: post #68
weaksauce wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A right click in most programs on a "file" will reveal an option that is along the lines of reveal "filename" in finder. iPhoto does this. I don't know if I understand what finder is doing different than say windows explorer or konqueror in linux. when you click on finder it opens a new file browser that has the typical list and icon view as well as some quicklook view that I don't like much and a nested list view wh…

Are you sure iPhoto still has a 'reveal in finder' option? I"m not seeing it... Though I don't know why you'd need it with iPhoto since you can just DnD photos out to the desktop (or wherever) if you want to work on them.

It had it the last time I looked but I use picasa now.

I guess it's part of the file menu now... http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2639319&#3...

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#78

Post by budu3 »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #44
shareme wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ahem, in mobile we do not have quit..nothing broke not even the mobile users :)

Actually, on my Android phone I'm constantly using a third party task killer to stop services and apps running in the background that I thought I 'quit' by backing out of them. I also use the quit option on apps that have it. I don't entirely trust Android to manage battery life as efficiently as possible yet, especially when iPhone still does it so much better, and when every time I check the services running on the…

I agree with you. It was one of the hardest things for me to wrap me mind around. I'm constantly looking for the quit button on apps and I always have the urge to use a task killer to kill off tasks. I have seen a visible degrading of the user experience when I leave tasks running in the back ground. I also suspect app developers are not managing tasks correctly leading to inconsistent behavior.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#79

Post by joe_the_user »

weaksauce wrote: post #64
joe_the_user wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand how current finder works, having used it a dozen times. Whatever it does, doesn't seem to involve separate folders. Seems Prima facie evidence of lack of usability since I have been able to reasonably easily understand Windows, Linux and the older Macintosh finder-thing. And yes, iPhotos seem to be a problem. I watched a friend spend three hours trying to find some photos they'd previous loa…

A right click in most programs on a "file" will reveal an option that is along the lines of reveal "filename" in finder. iPhoto does this. I don't know if I understand what finder is doing different than say windows explorer or konqueror in linux. when you click on finder it opens a new file browser that has the typical list and icon view as well as some quicklook view that I don't like much and a nested list view wh…

- In the case of iPhoto, I remember the program automatically copying the files from a camera to some folder deep within the hard drive and then giving not a clue later as to which folder that was and certainly not allowing any exploration between folders...

- Don't you find "a right click" with a one-button mouse a bit tricky? I did try it but somehow it wasn't happening... maybe that's where things went South.

- Plus, being a geek, I always can do what I need to do. I'm not really looking for solutions here. My main argument is that despite a reputation for usability, OS X seems to me to lack practical usability and to instead mostly coast on good and reputation.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#80

Post by masklinn »

tvon wrote: post #68
weaksauce wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A right click in most programs on a "file" will reveal an option that is along the lines of reveal "filename" in finder. iPhoto does this. I don't know if I understand what finder is doing different than say windows explorer or konqueror in linux. when you click on finder it opens a new file browser that has the typical list and icon view as well as some quicklook view that I don't like much and a nested list view wh…

Are you sure iPhoto still has a 'reveal in finder' option? I"m not seeing it... Though I don't know why you'd need it with iPhoto since you can just DnD photos out to the desktop (or wherever) if you want to work on them.

> Are you sure iPhoto still has a 'reveal in finder' option? I"m not seeing it...

Right click on a photo in iPhoto, then click on "Show File".

edit: ah crap I forgot a new iPhoto had been released and you're probably talking about '11, not '09. Ignore this comment.

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