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The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

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Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#121

Post by m_mueller »

grkvlt wrote: post #116
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…

Microsoft Word makes it pretty easy to find commands. For your example, I did the following: Click on 'Help' menu, type 'reve', press down arrow to select 'reveal formatting' and the actual menu item (in the 'View' menu) is highlighted, press 'enter' to enable. This is in Office 2016 for OSX.

That's what I meant. It's not a MS Office but an OSX feature. AFAIK the windows version still doesn't let you search through its ribbons.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#122

Post by digi_owl »

kartickvad wrote: post #111
userbinator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully the reason for a lack of windows on mobile devices is because their screens are too small to manipulate them effectively with a finger. Which is how most general users use windows on the desktop, so they're not losing much. I've noticed this too, and it's puzzling - I've seen people maximise browsers on large monitors and end up with a narrow column of text surrounded by tons of blank space, or the more dif…

I maximise windows to eliminate distraction. I'd rather finish reading the article I'm reading, for example, and then Cmd-Tab to something else, rather than obsessively glancing at a Gmail window a dozen times through the article. More the multitasking, the more stressed I get. One thing at a time is relaxing, and more productive. Feeling frantic doesn't result in any more work, or higher quality work, being done, af…

I seem to recall a old article that compared the usage of unix shell with that of ones daily life.

Could have been written by someone that trained older people on how to use computers.

This by showing how the shell task controls (ctrl-z, bg, fg) mapped to real life tasks.

Say you have a long running task, ctrl-z and bg makes it continue in the background. That i believe he likened to putting on a kettle in the morning. when either is done there will be someone sort of notification, and until then you don't really have to care about it.

Similarly you find something in the mail that you may want to deal with later. With physical mail you put it somewhere that you can see as you move around the home. With the shell you get the jobs command, and if you try to log out without ending them you get a warning.

This all going by memory.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#123

Post by Nullabillity »

pionar wrote: post #113
davidshepherd7 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be fair, Windows 8+ does that too.

Unity's HUD does it automatically for any program you have open. Windows 7+'s desktop search includes programs and control panel applets, but not much else.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#124

Post by bad_user »

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…

> What I'd like to see is a CLI that (a) understands objects by default (i.e. PowerShell) and (b) is discoverable, for example by using mouse interactions when you're trying to learn.

I do not agree. PowerShell is not that great, partly because in spite of popular opinion, text is more composable than objects and doesn't tie you to a particular platform.

And in the context of the article, I would argue that "objects" are a dominant design, being often misapplied and misunderstood. Besides, what you need for communication between processes aren't objects, as objects as commonly understood have identity and objects with identity can't be serialized. What you need is a way to structure that information by means of basic data-structures, like dictionaries or lists. But lo-and-behold, that's what JSON is for.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#125

Post by MichaelCrawford »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #112
MichaelCrawford wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was eventually able to find the ui that lists add-ons. To restore the add-on bar, I had to install another add-on. Im not real clear why firefox thought it was a good idea to remove the add-on bar without asking any of the people who use it, but the outcry was something like what is going on right now with reddit.

Ah are you looking for the UI to have UI elements for addons visible? In that case click the hamburger menu and then customize at the bottom of the menu. This should allow you to add UI buttons offered by the different addons you have installed next to you bookmarks etc button.

That only works for add-ons that know about the add-on bar deprecation.

The seo add on that didnt work has over one million installs yet firefox totally borked it.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#126

Post by jrochkind1 »

esolyt wrote: post #65
jrochkind1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure there are more "mobile" (smartphone and touch-tablet) devices being sold than there are desktop+laptop devices being sold. And this probably isn't going to change. So I expect desktop to keep stagnating. At some point the 'standard' desktop UI will probably merge somehow with the sorts of UI used on mobile instead.

Isn't that what Microsoft tried to do with Windows 8?

Yup.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#127

Post by aardvark179 »

m_mueller wrote: post #121
grkvlt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Word makes it pretty easy to find commands. For your example, I did the following: Click on 'Help' menu, type 'reve', press down arrow to select 'reveal formatting' and the actual menu item (in the 'View' menu) is highlighted, press 'enter' to enable. This is in Office 2016 for OSX.

That's what I meant. It's not a MS Office but an OSX feature. AFAIK the windows version still doesn't let you search through its ribbons.

Ther s a powertoy for the windows version that does this. Why it wasn't mad part of the core ribbon UI I'll never know.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#128

Post by mikaraento »

userbinator wrote: post #4

We predict that people who have grown up with computers will be much more capable as computer users than the current generation of users. Thus, they will be able to use (and will in fact, demand) expressive interfaces with advanced means of expressing their wants. How unfortunate that this did not turn out to be the case, and I think it's likely that is because most people liked the "simple and easy" Mac-like UIs wit…

The term has a specific meaning in the context: letting the user drive the order of interaction instead of following a set sequence. Many early character based interfaces forced the user follow a specific process (think filling in a form field-by-field). We are now taking the paint/word processor/window manager interaction where we can click on anything we want any time for granted.

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#129

Post by WorldWideWayne »

skymt wrote: post #56
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…

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…

The other thing the ribbon is missing is simplicity.

I can navigate the entire menu system by clicking the menu and then moving my mouse around. Same thing with the keyboard - I can activate a menu and then browse the whole thing with just the arrow keys. You can't do either of those with the ribbon.

The ribbon is nice for touch interfaces, but they should have made it also act like the menu system (as noted above). I bet the only reason they didn't do that is because they wanted to patent the ribbon as something new - http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/6074/prior-art-re...

Re: The Anti-Mac Interface (1996)

#130

Post by grkvlt »

m_mueller wrote: post #121
grkvlt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Word makes it pretty easy to find commands. For your example, I did the following: Click on 'Help' menu, type 'reve', press down arrow to select 'reveal formatting' and the actual menu item (in the 'View' menu) is highlighted, press 'enter' to enable. This is in Office 2016 for OSX.

That's what I meant. It's not a MS Office but an OSX feature. AFAIK the windows version still doesn't let you search through its ribbons.

OK, fair point. So is there nothing like that available in Windows? I had thought Win 7 and 8 had similar features, but maybe only for the desktop, not applications?
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