Star A Tour Of Sun's Project Indiana Preview 2
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 2nd Feb 2008 22:25 UTC, submitted by Michael Larabel
Sun Solaris, OpenSolaris "A week ago we reported that a second preview release of Project Indiana, Sun's attempt at creating an operating system for the desktop based upon OpenSolaris and led by Ian Murdock, was on track to be released in the near future. Thursday afternoon that became true with the test image surfacing for Developer Preview 2 of Project Indiana, or what will formally be called OpenSolaris. Officially, this new release is known as the OpenSolaris Developer Preview 1/08 edition. The general availability release of Project Indiana is expected in March, but today we have up a tour of this new Indiana release."
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Laurence
Member since:
2007-03-26

I like to think that all GUI should more or less behave the same. Like all word processors and all spread sheets etc. The ideal would be if there were only ONE gui that all operatins systems used? And only ONE word processor? etc.


I really do think that would be less than ideal. Possibly even damaging.

Not everyone wants to work a computer in the same way. That's why GUIs are different. Some people like a simple stripped down interface which favors keyboard shortcuts. Some people prefer larger more complex beasts like KDE.

If everyone preferred to work the same way than you wouldn't here so many flamewars about Vista, OS X, KDE, Gnome, et al.

That is the meaning of STANDARD. Instead of several competing technologies that have incompatible programs, there is only one technology.


I feel you're taking the term 'standard' slightly out of context here.

You can have a standard document format (say RTF for simplistic reasons) but competing word processors running on competing platforms with radically different GUIs can all still read and edit the same file regardless of how they launch applications, what the widgets look like or even what word processor they use.

Final point:
The whole point of GUIs is to make life simpler. If you force people to use a GUI which is counter-intuitive to that particular person then ultimately they're going to struggle more than if you give them a text console and told them what words to key in.

Edited 2008-02-03 21:38 UTC

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Kebabbert Member since:
2007-07-27

Maybe you are right and I am wrong. However, with Standard I mean things like, right mouse click for this, menues at the top, etc. How the GUI looks are a different thing. However, you wouldnt like a GUI where right mouse click and left were interchanged, where there existed no menues at all - instead it showed a film to choose between menues. So all GUIs are more or less the same. They only look different. But imagine if a GUI were so good and natural that no other GUI was needed. There were only one GUI on all OSes. Wouldnt that be simpler? If there were lots of different word processors with different file formats, that would be a pain? That is why we are trying with Open Office on all OSes. You shouldnt have to relearn. Thats the point.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 1

Laurence Member since:
2007-03-26

Maybe you are right and I am wrong. However, with Standard I mean things like, right mouse click for this, menues at the top, etc. How the GUI looks are a different thing. However, you wouldnt like a GUI where right mouse click and left were interchanged, where there existed no menues at all - instead it showed a film to choose between menues. So all GUIs are more or less the same. They only look different. But imagine if a GUI were so good and natural that no other GUI was needed. There were only one GUI on all OSes. Wouldnt that be simpler? If there were lots of different word processors with different file formats, that would be a pain? That is why we are trying with Open Office on all OSes. You shouldnt have to relearn. Thats the point.


I still don't think that's to anyone’s advantage. Some people find the right mouse clicks confusing (too many buttons with hidden menus) and prefer Macs simpler click and hold approach. Personally I find the Mac method a handicap.

Not every person is wired the same way so why should everyone be forced to use the interfaces?

Another classic example is text command shells verses GUIs. I'm quite at home with a command line prompt where as many (most even) people I know hate them and avoid them where ever possible. I'm quite happy to do basic text editing in Vi (in fact I prefer it at times) where as some people find that interface a complete pain.

When building interfaces for humans you have to remember that there is no such thing as a "one size fits all" as no matter how well you design something, someone will prefer to interact differently.

Also, from a technology perspective: a little competition between the various interfaces is what pushes the technology forward. Do you think Vista wouldn't have looked the way it looked if Apple hadn't have developed OS X? And do you think Aqua would even have existed if someone sat Apple down and told them "You can build OS X, but it has to be similar to Windows GUI and KDE?"

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