Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 1st Aug 2011 21:27 UTC
Mozilla has already done a lot to clean up the user interface of its successful web browser, but it would seem they're not yet done. As someone who finds the current interface a little... Chaotic and distracting, I'm quite happy with the changes they're currently proposing. They basically pointed at Chrome and said "pretty much that".
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Member since:2010-06-19
Member since:2009-10-23
Also, drag and drop is another relic from the past that should be run away from as fast as possible. ESPECIALLY if they target touch devices.
Aside from touch based devices, what's wrong with drag 'n' drop? I've personally never found a GUI thats more fluid to use than RISC OS which is very heavy on that.
Member since:2010-03-08
It's a pretty complex operation for what it's usually used for. You have to...
-Target the file (precise pointing)
-Grab it
-While holding the mouse button, target the destination area, which is generally small if present at all and does not benefit from the infinite screen borders, unless you switch windows by doing a complex round trip to the task switcher while still holding your file.
Compared to copy&paste or, in this case, clicking an "install extension" button, this looks exceedingly complicated.
Maybe RISC OS has some kind of large permanently visible screen area dedicated to drag and drop, though. This could reduce the latter targeting problem at the cost of precious screen area. I've heard of one OS that had such a "shelf", though I can't remember how it was called.
Unless this firefox UI automatically opens the gear menu automatically, it doesn't have this for it, but you're right that I was being a bit harsh. Maybe drag and drop can be done right and made pleasant as compared to alternatives. I've just never seen a UI to date that made it a practical option. Delphi's form builder was close, but is was still simpler to single-click the control and single-click the form, instead of dragging the mouse around with the left finger pressed.
Edited 2011-08-03 08:26 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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2010-03-08
* Controls are too large for mouse use, it's a waste of space. Firefox 4/5 was an improvement in terms of screen estate use, why go back now ? Firefox's main destination platform won't be equipped with a touchscreen anytime soon.
* Home button positioning sounds incredibly annoying for an experienced user, but well, I got used to it for FF4 so I guess I could get used to it too. It also makes sense from a UX standpoint to put it close to the "App tabs". However, why not move the bookmarks button there, then ?
* The "gear" menu is an awful mess. Bi-dimensional grids don't work well and never had for anything other than file browsing, people should just get over it. Also, drag and drop is another relic from the past that should be run away from as fast as possible. ESPECIALLY if they target touch devices.
* Give me my search bar back ! I need it, and they don't explain how they plan to properly replace it yet.
As a whole, not attracted by this interface. As pointed out by others, if I wanted to use Chrome, I would use Chrome.