Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 18th Nov 2007 15:46 UTC
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.
Thread beginning with comment 285112
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[2]: Yet another thing not invented by Jobs/Apple.
by tupp on Mon 19th Nov 2007 08:28
in reply to "RE: Yet another thing not invented by Jobs/Apple."
Member since:2006-11-12
Okay. The term "dock" relating to GUIs probably originated with NeXTSTEP, but "a rose by any other name..."
Thank you for reminding me of the term "harbor" -- I was racking my brain earlier, trying to remember it.
Yes. Many of the *nix WMs that had "docks" after 1989 were emulating NeXTSTEP.
However, if "docking" an active application means having its icon appear along one edge of the screen, you need to do much better than 1989, more like 1985. Windows 1.01 had this capability then. That's four years before NeXTSTEP's dock was released (according to your post).
In an earlier post, I made the same statement as you regarding the subjectivity of "dock" definitions.
Don't know "quicklaunch," but I don't see much functional differences between task-bars and docks.
RE[3]: Yet another thing not invented by Jobs/Apple.
by bogomipz on Mon 19th Nov 2007 09:25
in reply to "RE[2]: Yet another thing not invented by Jobs/Apple."
Member since:2005-07-11
As mentioned earlier, Apple did some changes to the Dock. Today, the definition seems to be; an icon bar where the same icons are used both to show running apps and to launch them.
Traditional taskbars don't fit this description. So there is at least one difference right there. All the choices of ways to launch and/or monitor applications share some similarities. It can therefore be hard to distinguish them, and maybe there's no real need to, but we humans tend to come up with words to distinguish similar but slightly different concepts.
However, if "docking" an active application means having its icon appear along one edge of the screen...
Well, in NeXTSTEP, nothing appeared in the Dock at all. You had to drag it there to dock it. See my post further down for a screenshot and some more comments on this.
By "quicklaunch" I meant the Quick Launch toolbar.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
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.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
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, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
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."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"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?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
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.More News »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2005-07-11
Regarding your last paragraph. Please take into account that the term "Dock" originates from NeXTSTEP. The docks/wharfs/harbors in fluxbox, openbox, pekwm and so on exist to make use of WindowMaker's dockapps, which became a sort of X11 "applet" standard in the old days. And the whole point of WindowMaker (and AfterStep) was of course to recreate the NeXTSTEP experience, if only at a shallow level. OS X is really the latest version of NeXTSTEP, so to have had a dock before this OS, you need to do much better than 2001, more like 1989. That's two years before Linus released version 0.01 of his kernel, by the way.
Whether something counts as a "Dock" depends on your subjective definition of the term. I don't consider Windows' taskbar with quicklaunch to be the same concept at all, for instance. You're not "docking" anything in there, really. Actually, I even think the changes Apple made to the Dock drifts it somewhat away from what the term describes.