Re: Some questions raised by 131010

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Tue, 2004-11-23 at 11:55, Alan Horkan wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Shaun McCance wrote:
> > All right, I understand that not everybody has a huge resolution.  And
> > for the record, I only have a 1280x1024 resolution, which isn't all that
> > huge by today's standards.  And applications should certainly do what
> 
> I am afraid that is still a large resolution by todays standards, and
> developers and computer enthusiasts tend to have better equipment.

I didn't say it wasn't large.  I said it wasn't *all that huge*.  Yes,
it's above average.  But it's not a way-off fringe case, like the "3
3000x2000 screens" that the parent post was talking about.  I've also
run my desktop at 1152x864 and 1024x768 on various machines.  I have all
the same usage habits with them.  That is, I never maximize.

A decade ago, Mac users were doing the same thing I'm doing now.  That
is to say, they weren't maximizing windows.  They were working with
applications that had multiple overlapping windows.  How big do you
think their monitors were?  Here's a hint: they were smaller than
1024x768.

> I'm sure you wont believe me on the importance of catering to
> users with smallers screens but I will try and convince you anyway with
> some statistics

Why are you sure of that?  You basically just said "It's no use talking
to you, because you're a stubborn idiot who won't believe what I say." 
That's pretty insulting, particularly since I very distinctly said,
"Applications should certainly do what they can to accomodate common
setups."  It seems like half your email is arguing against a point that
I wasn't making.

> If you prefer a more technical justification it makes it impractical to
> run (or easily port) your appliation to handheld devices, so unless you
> have an extremely good reason to do otherwise it makes sense to go with a
> design that will work well on a large range of screen sizes.

One-design-fits-all makes for designs that fit none.  PDAs and desktop
computers are different devices.  They have different display abilities,
different input methods, different usage patterns.  Trying to create a
design that will work on both will make a design that doesn't work very
well on either.

... more stuff snipped ...

Every time I post stuff like this, people pick and choose what they
reply to.  That's fair, since I pick and choose what I reply to as
well.  But it strikes me as odd that nobody ever replies to my main
objections to the everything-maximized design.  How do you work with
multiple documents (images, folders, whatever) at the same time?

There are problems with CSDI interfaces on today's X desktops.  These
designs that work really well on the Mac aren't working as well for us.
But rather than applying SDI with a bulldozer (the Windows approach), we
should find out why CSDI isn't working as well on our desktops.

--
Shaun