This is the sixth article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms [part I | part II | part III | part IV | part V]. On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. In part VI, we focus on the dock.
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Member since:2005-07-06
in linux you can work the way you want to, there is no set desktop in linux.
but gnome and kde use a lot of windows elements as that is what most potential users are used to.
btw, did you just call non-apple users stupid without being direct about it?
anyways, i would say both ways have its issues, and its related to using windows the way they do. i wonder if not one should take a step back to the days before apple introduced free-floating windows.
some of those wm's on *nix seems interesting in that regard.
Member since:2006-11-12
i wonder if not one should take a step back to the days before apple introduced free-floating windows.
Apple did not invent free-floating windows -- the Xerox Alto and Xerox Star had them long before Apple: http://toastytech.com/guis/altost1.jpg
http://toastytech.com/guis/altost2.jpg The Three Rivers PERQ also had them before Apple: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/perqt2/perqzoom.jpg
Edited 2007-11-18 22:30
Member since:2006-02-05
I didn't call anyone stupid, I was talking about how it feels to work in the windows style modal paradigm vs the mac classic spatial paradigm. It has nothing to do with intelligence of the users, and everything to do with the philosophy behind the design descisions.
but gnome and kde use a lot of windows elements as that is what most potential users are used to.
I have yet to run across a really spatial WM in linux. There isn't anything that is even equivilent to OSX, and OSX is a far cry from Mac Classic in this regard. Of course, I could be wrong.
And really, I'm not trying to be insulting or anything. Mac Classic had this approach, BeOS had it, OSX has it to a degree, and even though I have never used NeXT, from what I have read it looks like it had it.
some of those wm's on *nix seems interesting in that regard.
twm and ratpoison leap to mind.
That is again, a completely different way of approaching things. I was talking about the mac and the windows approach, and how the taskbar and the dock address the space of task switching differently.
Member since:2007-07-01
Huh? The Xfce I'm using even has smart window placement, so if I open up 4 terminals simultaneously, not only are they not maximized, but they're automatically placed in separate corners of the screen so all 4 are fully visible at the same time.
Lumping all *nix DE's/WM's together might be a bad idea.
Member since:2006-03-18
"This effectively embraces the idea that applications are Modes. The taskbar provides a way to switch modes. "
Well, applications are, after all, the reason we use computers. I find it amazing that so much time and energy is spent debating the relative merits of operating systems, when our interaction with the OS comprises perhaps 5% or less of the amount of time we spend working each day.
As for the idea that Windows is somehow designed around full screen applications - hogwash. Windows is designed around choice. You want fullscreen, you get fullscreen. You want to tile 4 apps and switch maniacally between them, bob's your uncle - windows will happily oblige you. On the Mac though, Steve has made all the decisions for you, how dare you try to maximize an application!
Member since:2006-02-05
What happens when you launch abiword? Cause when you launch Pages, the window doesnt fill your entire monitor, only the size of your document. The "accessory" apps are corner cases, they are treated in a spatial manner, but they are one of the few classes of applications that do.
Member since:2005-10-12
"In windows/linux, you launch an app and it runs fullscreen"
They don't, surely? They launch at whatever size you set them to the last time you opened them. They don't even start out full screen do they? Now you have me scratching my head and trying to remember how they worked in Win 98 - someone I do work for is still running W98 on one machine, and I don't think even there the apps open full screen.
I just fired up a whole bunch in Linux, and not one opened up full screen. What is this about?
Is there any difference between MacOS and other OSs in this respect? The tiling or tabbed window managers of course, in Unix/Linux, but they are a rare breed.
Member since:2005-07-11
How applications open is set in the shortcut (.lnk) to that app. You can set it to Normal Window, Maximised Window, or Minimised Window.
The default is Normal Window, which starts the app with whatever window size it was set to the last time you opened it, or a default size as set by the app coders.
This has been the behaviour since Windows 95 and the birth of the .lnk file. It was also possible to do this in the Windows 3.x days by hand-editing the .pif file.
There has never been a "default to maximised" or "always start maximised" setting in Windows.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2006-02-05
The dock is more tailored to the Apple UI ideas. In windows/linux, you launch an app and it runs fullscreen. At that point, you want as little OS interference as possible. This effectively embraces the idea that applications are Modes. The taskbar provides a way to switch modes.
The Apple way says that applications arent modes, they are operating system objects. The traditional mac approach is you never run windows fullscreen, you run them as large as they need to be. Transitions between one application and another are more seamless, they all look and act the same, have the same menubar, you can often see the work you are doing in one even if you are in another. It is a concept that is very hard to explain to someone who has never really worked with it, but anyone who grew up on mac classic not only gets it, but finds the fullscreen approach kludgy.