"So, which really is better for the desktop: Vista or Linux? I've been working with Vista since its beta days, and I started using Linux in the mid-90s. There may be other people who have worked with both more than I have, but there can't be many of them. Along the way, I've formed a strong opinion: Linux is the better of the two. But, now that Vista is on the brink of becoming widely available, I thought it was time to take a comprehensive look at how the two really compare. To do this, I decided to take one machine, install both of them on it, and then see what life was like with both operating systems on a completely even playing field."
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Member since:2005-07-02
Did you actually do it? The Photoshop dialog only has several additional options: "as a copy", "Layer", and "Use lower-case extension".
The actual "file name" section behaves differently from other Windows application. When you click in it it automatically selects the whole name. It also has the behavior of automatically adding "copy" to the filename when you select to save a PSD as a JPEG (since it automatically selects "as a copy").
In any case the point is moot as you've admitted that the dialogs are different after claiming (and I quote): "All 'Save as...' dialogs are exactly the same." The fact is that they are not. There are UI inconsistencies. There always will be, especially if you use older apps.
What a deal. These are the applications I tried: Edit Pad Pro, Firefox, IE7, OpenOffice.org Writer and Photoshop. They all have the same "Save as..." dialog.
Oh, I'm not saying that *all* dialogs are different, just that there are differences between some of them, something which you've acknowledged. Yet no one would think to say that they wouldn't use Windows because of those differences. The argument is no more valid against Linux.
BTW, it's telling that you didn't try MS Office, because, which is notorious for having its own little additions to the Open/File dialogs.
Tell me, if I add a shortcut on the left-side pane of the Save dialog (the one that is not there on IE6's save dialog, for example), does the shortcut appear on the PS Save dialog? Oops. Bad example. You can't actually add new shortcuts in the Windows Save dialog's left-side pane. You can in KDE though, with a simple right-click in the left-side pane of the dialog. You can then specify with a checkmark whether or not you want to add this shortcut to *all* applications' Save dialog, or only for the current app.
Then, why do the widgets (radio button, checkbox, butons, scrollbars...) look like the rest of the desktop if you use Firefox in Gnome? It should be different from both Gnome and KDE according to you. The thing is that Firefox is done for Gnome and not for KDE. This is because it uses Gtk.
Not exactly. I can change the look of Firefox widgets so they are different of the Gtk ones, though it will still use the Gtk theme for such things as Open/Save dialogs (or, in my case, the Qt theme, since my Kubuntu was setup from the get go to use GTK themes and fonts).
For example, if I click on a download link, the window that pops up uses the theme I selected from the Firefox Theme page (an aqua-like theme). If I select Save instead of Open, the Save dialog uses the GTK theme
(the Firefox people did that to ensure cross-platform theme compatibility).
It's not FUD, these are facts that you can double-check yourself. FUD is all the Linux community does to try to bring more people in their war against "MS".
It is FUD. MS didn't invent FUD (that honor would go to IBM, IIRC), but it sure is the biggest source of FUD these days. Disinformation from overeager Linux advocates pales in comparison to the barrage of FUD from MS, its shills and its fanboys. To use your own metaphor, it's not the Linux people who fired the first shots in this war. It's MS, and it keeps firing its much bigger guns.
Claiming that the existence of multiple toolkits creates real problems on Linux (and therefore is a reason to avoid using it) is pure textbook FUD.
Member since:2005-06-29
You know, for me the major problem with Linux is not its lack of features, inconsistencies or incompatibilities, it's the lack of will from its community to solve these problems. I have reported all the problems that I discussed in this thread among developers, filing bug reports, writing directly to developers, and they always say it's not an issue or it's someone else's responsibility.
Member since:
2005-06-29
The save dialog for Photoshop is different than the one for MS Word, for example. The latter is also different from the one for Internet Explorer (which are two MS apps).
Did you actually do it? The Photoshop dialog only has several additional options: "as a copy", "Layer", and "Use lower-case extension". What a deal. These are the applications I tried: Edit Pad Pro, Firefox, IE7, OpenOffice.org Writer and Photoshop. They all have the same "Save as..." dialog.
Firefox is not a pure GTK application. It has its own theme engine.
Then, why do the widgets (radio button, checkbox, butons, scrollbars...) look like the rest of the desktop if you use Firefox in Gnome? It should be different from both Gnome and KDE according to you. The thing is that Firefox is done for Gnome and not for KDE. This is because it uses Gtk.
It's not FUD, these are facts that you can double-check yourself. FUD is all the Linux community does to try to bring more people in their war against "M $".
Edited 2007-01-28 21:19