Sometimes, Apple's (or any other software maker's) complete lack of respect for usability never ceases to amaze me. Take today for example. Apart from the close, minimise, and "maximise" widgets Apple places on window decors, there is also a fourth widget programmers on the Apple platform can use. This widget resembles a sort of dash, and is placed on the top right corner of the window decor. This widget is used in many applications, both from Apple as well as from various third parties. It has one function: toggle the visibility of the window's toolbar.
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Member since:2005-11-10
Member since:2005-06-29
I've told you for the 50th thousand time, stop exaggerating!
The pill widget "hides/shows the toolbar". For Finder, it just really hides it. It's not off-the-charts, not-what-you-expected like you're making it out to be.
Did you even READ the article, Kroc? The button does NOT "just" hide the toolbar in Finder (as it does on every other application). The button does the following things:
1) hide the toolbar
2) hide the sidebar
3) change the window's theme
4) switches the Finder to spatial mode
And that spatial mode has the following HUGE flaws:
1) it does not mark currently-opened directories as such
2) the spatial mode is ONLY activated when starting your navigation from the SPECIFIC directory you clicked the pill button on (i.o.w., when starting your navigation somewhere else, the windows are navigational). And with spatial I mean that every directory opens in its own window. You can actually have navigational and spatial windows side-by-side.
So, Kroc, it does NOT "just" hide the toolbar.
Update: This is the end result:
http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/5571/blahbu6.png
I clicked the pill button when I had "Cube" open; I then closed this window. When I now start navigating in "Cube", Finder acts spatial. However, when I start browsing at "Thom", it acts navigational. Bonckers!
Edited 2007-07-01 17:20
Member since:2006-06-03
Member since:
2005-06-29
You could just as well claim that programmers are doing bad job because they cant program flawlessly and don't use your favourite programming language.
Nonsense. This is about one of the simplest rules in UI design, whether it be on a computer on a real-world device.
When I buy a CD player, I expect that the button with the little triangle on it means "play". When I press that button, and suddenly the player turns from black into polka dot, and will only accept MiniDiscs afterwards, it is a bad CD player.