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The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

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Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#101

Post by anon4 »

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #78
skymt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Office Ribbon is notable for being designed entirely for discoverability. What it lacks is familiarity. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.as... > Office "12" consolidates all of the entry points into one place: the Ribbon. So if you're trying to find a feature and don't know where it is, the scope of your search is drastically reduced. Click on the leftmost tab, and click across the tabs u…

My favorite path is that (MS Word): 1. Click the tiny icon in the bottom right corner of the styles widget. It will open essentially the same widget, but as a vertical list and with a few additional controls; this is what we're after. 2. At the bottom there are three nearly identical buttons without labels. Click the 2nd one from the left (the tooltip says "Style Inspector"). This will open another floating window. W…

Can't you script it in visual basic and pin a button to one of the ribbons?

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#102

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin »

anon4 wrote: post #101
Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite path is that (MS Word): 1. Click the tiny icon in the bottom right corner of the styles widget. It will open essentially the same widget, but as a vertical list and with a few additional controls; this is what we're after. 2. At the bottom there are three nearly identical buttons without labels. Click the 2nd one from the left (the tooltip says "Style Inspector"). This will open another floating window. W…

Can't you script it in visual basic and pin a button to one of the ribbons?

I can put it directly to the ribbon (i.e. its available as a command in the customization options), but to do all this I need to know it exists (i.e. discover it), and the ribbon-style path is not very discoverable. I still wonder how I found it in the first place. As they say it here, it's probably God kissed me on the head :)

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#103

Post by acqq »

falconic wrote: post #77
skymt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Office Ribbon is notable for being designed entirely for discoverability. What it lacks is familiarity. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.as... > Office "12" consolidates all of the entry points into one place: the Ribbon. So if you're trying to find a feature and don't know where it is, the scope of your search is drastically reduced. Click on the leftmost tab, and click across the tabs u…

I mean, it's a nice theory but it isn't actually true. There's tons of functionality which exists in many ribbon-ified programs but not actually accessible from the ribbon. If you right click on the ribbon in many applications and select 'customize' you'll find all sorts of useful functionality. The customize window (at least in Excel 2010, which I happen to be looking at at the moment) has organization to help you f…

It's even worse: look at the Paint in W7: there is a ribbon, but try to find something as simple as "print" there. No, the Print button is behind the button that drops down the menu. Then look at the Mail in W7 (Live, whatever). Once the big button called "Send and and receive" on the toolbar is also not on the ribbon, but a tiny tiny button on the title bar. If you already have the muscle and visual memory for the older interface, such "illogical" shifts can remain confusing for a long time. Especially to the older people.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#104

Post by davidshepherd7 »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #91
lobster_johnson wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like for all apps to have a command lookup similar to Sublime Text: Type some text to match a command. The list must be exhaustive -- if it's not there, the command cannot exist. (Unfortunately, Sublime commands are explicitly registered and the list isn't complete; it even lacks core Sublime commands.) The list should also show keyboard shortcuts and allow a way to modify them in-place. (Sublime doesn't do that…

Ubuntu's unity does the command lookup thing with its HUD. XFCE allows one to change keyboard shortcut settings in a similar fashion (from within the menus as it doesn't have the HUD)?

That's one of the things I really like about Unity. Can't remember which menu the mouse settings are buried in? No problem, just type "mouse" into the dash.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#105

Post by davidshepherd7 »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #89
m_mueller wrote: post #35

One thing that almost always gets overlooked when critizing / trying to innovate on Xerox Parc-like interfaces, is discoverability. Look at departures from this interface (or predecessors of it) and you'll almost always find a system where it's hard for users to discover what they can do and how their actions will affect the state. Most prominently: * iOS style gestures * Office Ribbons (where has my feature XY been…

I'd like for all apps to have a command lookup similar to Sublime Text: Type some text to match a command. The list must be exhaustive -- if it's not there, the command cannot exist. (Unfortunately, Sublime commands are explicitly registered and the list isn't complete; it even lacks core Sublime commands.) The list should also show keyboard shortcuts and allow a way to modify them in-place. (Sublime doesn't do that…

Emacs with ido or helm does this [1] but unfortunately it requires quite a bit of customisation, and even more customisation to get nice fuzzy matching.

It does include every possible command though, and it can show keyboard shortcuts.

[1]: http://sachachua.com/blog/2014/03/emacs-basics-call-commands...

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#106

Post by teddyh »

Animats wrote: post #8

The proposed alternative: "The central role of language" using "a pidgin language for computers." Sort of like talking to Wolfram Alpha or Siri. So far, that hasn't scaled well. Doing anything complicated through such an interface is painful. Works fine for the easy/banal stuff, which is why it's successful in the phone space.

The better alternative might be something more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI#t=9m

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#107

Post by nitrogen »

vacri wrote: post #74
m_mueller wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's mostly enough for simple cases, but have you ever tried to discern a gcc command with 12 compilation flags enabled? It takes you half an hour to find everything you need in the man pages. 30 years after the wide scale spread of pointer devices this is IMO just ridiculous.

> have you ever tried to discern a gcc command with 12 compilation flags enabled? This isn't a 'discoverability' problem - the problem is the complex task. Most of what you're doing on the commandline isn't "gcc with 12 compilation flags". "How do I print this document?" is an example of poor discoverability on the CLI; command flags are not.

To print, one used to pipe things into the lpr command, discoverable using the apropos command.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#108

Post by anentropic »

m_mueller wrote: post #35

One thing that almost always gets overlooked when critizing / trying to innovate on Xerox Parc-like interfaces, is discoverability. Look at departures from this interface (or predecessors of it) and you'll almost always find a system where it's hard for users to discover what they can do and how their actions will affect the state. Most prominently: * iOS style gestures * Office Ribbons (where has my feature XY been…

I actually think OSX and especially some of the Apple apps like FCPX have a bunch of discoverability problems

there's a lot of cases where you have to hold down alt (option) to reveal the 'secret' menu options or special tool mode or where double-clicking on something provides a feature not surfaced in the right-click menu etc etc

it seems someone has gone through the interface and tried to sweep away visual clutter, effecting a superficial subjective improvement while harming discoverability and thus usability

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#109

Post by sparkie »

snowwrestler wrote: post #57
vbezhenar wrote: post #5

> We seem to have settled on the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model, and there is very little real innovation in interface design anymore. It's an interesting exercise to compare this to the mobile platforms, e.g. iOS. Windows are gone. Icons are here. Menus are changed. Pointer is changed too (your finger is pointer, not an abstract arrow). Though on OS X desktop I don't see any innovations at all! May be I…

The big innovations in OS X are: - Tabs allow you condense like windows into one. Collections of windows now have context with one another. - Window management keys/gestures like Expose or Mission Control allow for many more active windows without getting lost. - High speed local search (called Spotlight on the Mac) reduces the need for nested folders or really much organization at all. Also enables typing to launch…

I'm not very familiar with OSX so not sure if we mean the same thing - but how is the first of those an innovation in OSX?

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#110

Post by amake »

Mikhail_Edoshin wrote: post #99
lobster_johnson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotlight used to be bad, but the issues were resolved long ago. It's fast and gives good results, and no longer freezes or consumes lots of CPU. In Yosemite you even have a bunch of NLP stuff, like typing "100 feet in meters" to perform calculations.

I cannot keep up with Apple :) It changes so fast, I cannot switch computers that often.

The last few versions of OS X have been free if you have 10.6 or higher. The last hardware that was dropped from support was sold between 2007 and early 2008.
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