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That’s it, we’re quitting

design.canonical.com

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Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#81

Post by extension »

markkanof wrote: post #71
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 speci…

File ->

New Doc (generate name, save in $HOME)

New Doc Named...

Rename

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#82

Post by masklinn »

joe_the_user wrote: post #57
tvon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only can I not find files when Finder doesn't use folders (...) Huh? Do you mean things like iPhoto that bundle photos?

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…

> Whatever it does, doesn't seem to involve separate folders.

Sure does, it overlays a standard Unix filesystem with some OSX-specific features (hides "system" folders such as /bin or /tmp, displays "bundles" as files).

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#84

Post by masklinn »

joe_the_user wrote: post #79
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…

- 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. - Pl…

> 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...

Well the fundamental idea behind iPhoto is: why would you care where it put your files at all?

* If you want to see or edit your pictures, you can do so via iPhoto (or iPhoto-compatible image manipulation)

* If you want to mail or export pictures, iPhoto has "Share" and "Export" options

* If you want to open one of your pictures in a third-party software, OSX's standard file picker has a "media" section which gives you a special iPhoto file picker (which works extremely well, it can even search through all your tags and faces)

All the iLife apps (iMovie and GarageBand, mostly) work this way. So does iTunes.

> Don't you find "right click" with one-button mouse a bit tricky?

Control-click. And every mac that has shipped in the last 3 or 4 years can right click.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#85

Post by joe_the_user »

It seems like most of what he's complaining about stems from the illogic of the MDI interface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface) and has nothing to do with the Quit command as such.

But really, what you want is for every document-editing app to open a single document, with maybe some tools on the side. The problems he mentions here go away and the "quit" menu option remains perfectly logical.

It's made a little tougher through Browser-tabs being the bastard-son of MDI. But seriously, multiple windows should be handled by the taskbar or some other thing.

Music is tougher question but considering every the Linux jukebox apps I know is a complete pig on resources, some way to quit pretty necessary.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#86

Post by arrogant »

cabacon wrote: post #53
cookiecaper wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, generally. I find Mac the most irritating platform to use -- the shortcuts are all different because Apple has a silly insistence of using Super where they should use Ctrl, and common shortcuts are supplanted by the OS, leaving apps to have to find new ones. The Dock is a slow method of switching and Sup+~ shortcut to switch to a windows is more annoying than a straight Alt+Tab. Sup+H and your window goes aw…

Huh. I find that shortcut consistency is actually a strength of the platform. Are you talking about inconsistencies between OS X's choice and the other OSes you use? Because otherwise, I don't see it. Only on the Mac do I know that I can use the same key combo (apple-,) to get to the preferences of an application, regardless of where it came from. And I'm not sure how apple-` is "more annoying" than alt-tab; apple-ta…

I agree with this. The fact that you can cycle through both applications and a specific applications' individual windows (in a consistent way) is definitely a perk of the way that OS X handles windows.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#87

Post by ggchappell »

hristov wrote: post #70

As an Ubuntu user, these articles scare the hell out of me. The quit or exit command is not confusing at all. And if you want to get rid of it, you'd better make sure that none of your programs have any memory leaks ever (good luck with that). You know what is much more confusing than the quit command? Having to go into the CLI or the task manager and kill stuff manually because it is eating half of your memory and p…

> It is extremely annoying that this starry eyed experimentation is going on in the most popular Linux distro. They are basically risking the one foothold Linux has been able to make in the desktop world. If you want to experiment, you should start an experimental distro and not risk your's and Linux's one single solid success.

That is an excellent point, and one that worries me, too.

On the other hand, I'm glad that some major player in the Linux world has an interest in UI experimentation.

How to reconcile these two thoughts? Maybe what we need is another Ubuntu variant (like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc.) that is stuffed full of experimental ideas. And then the best ones get into the more mainline releases.

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#88

Post by Derbasti »

hristov wrote: post #73
zoul wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The thing is, you tend to hit save every other second, while you probably only need to revert/lock like once or twice a day.

Think of lock just like commiting to your personal source control. Revert than maps perfectly to SVN revert. You work just like you always do. You commit whenever you finished some task and want to start a new one. You revert whenever you found out that you did some wrong stuff since your last commit. I do these actions every day today.

But I almost never discard all changes since the last save. Hence, I'd be glad to have the OS save my work implicitly for me and take care of my personal source control system. The proposed system would actually save me a lot of work!

Re: That’s it, we’re quitting

#90

Post by GHFigs »

hristov wrote: post #73
zoul wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your documents can carry in them hidden past versions without you being aware of it.

That's not how the feature is implemented. Versions are maintained in the filesystem, not within the file.

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