Re: Some questions raised by 131010

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, Shaun McCance wrote:

> Date: 23 Nov 2004 15:25:09 -0600
> From: Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>
> To: desktop-devel-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: Some questions raised by 131010
>
> 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

On a mac there is drag and drop as well as consistant cut and paste
everywhere and you often want to have at least part of the desktop visible
so you can drag and drop things to the desktop (I used a Mac years ago and
was impressed that I could save an image from a web page using a simple
drag and drop to the desktop).

When I used the Mac I didn't maximise because I wanted to keep a strip on
the right clear.

On the Mac the menus are at the top of the screen, so the advantages of
maximising/fullscreen compared to on windows/gnome/kde are not as
significant.

You do have good point but it is not an easy direct comparision.

> applications that had multiple overlapping windows.  How big do you
> think their monitors were?  Here's a hint: they were smaller than
> 1024x768.

I have only have some not very detailed memory of how Macs were 10 years
ago but I would have to ask if a decade ago mac users had complex apps
with many seperate individual dialogs or pallettes?  I think they were a
rarity and that most application windows were kept fairly simple and
uncluttered.

I think the CSDI applications we are referring to are not close to the
core desktop, where simple single window applications seem to work best.

I would also point out that the kind of CSDI the Macintosh has makes the
Menubar the control window where as the Gimp,Dia,Sodipodi, etc make the
Toolbox the control window which I think makes quite a difference.  So
again I dont think the comparison of how applications like Dia or the Gimp
do CSDI to the Mac is not a perfect direct comparision.

Borland Delphi on Windows used CSDI with the a window containing the menu
as the control window, which you can just about make out from this
screenshot (it is not MDI but it is difficult to tell because the windows
are closely packed together in the screenshot.
http://www.pckurier.pl/archiwum/artykuly/szulowski_michal/2002_20_22/1.gif

> > 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?

poor choice of words, it would at least be more convincing to try and
provide something to back up my opinions as in the past they have been
dismissed.

> You basically just said "It's no use talking
> to you, because you're a stubborn idiot who won't believe what I say."

It was certainly not my intention to imply anything like that.

> "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.

A simple design that works on small displays will scale up fairly well and
probably be fairly easy to use.  One design wont fit all of course but a
simpler design has a better chance of fitting more situtations.

> 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.

I cannot comment on how well it works but Microsoft have been shoehorning
apps onto smaller devices and it is bizarre to see strange devices running
what looks like Windows 98 on a 320x200 display but I've seen 'em.

Maybe I'm rejecting CSDI because the current crop of CSDI applictions are
not particularly user friendly and in my opinion are overcomplicating
things and I favour a simpler approach.

> 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?

Edit, Copy   (preferably by using Ctrl+C)
Switch       (preferably by using Alt+Tab)
Edit, Paste  (preferably by using Ctrl+V)

I have this habit from a mix of using the Mac and Windows although
using Gnome the past few years has forced me to adjust my usage
patterns.

I probably use options that allow me to Insert from a file where possible
rather than opening each file seperartely then moving data between them.

The Gimp however does have excellent drag and drop support which
does make having all those little windows open fairly useful but I'm not
convinced it is signficantly better than how Inkscape organises the
mainwindow.

When using the drag and drop support I would tend to be copying from one
image to another (two windows primarily) rather than copying from many
different sample images to a target image so I wouldn't see the advantage
of having many small windows open.

> 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.

As I have said already I dont think the CSDI applications we are referring
to can be very directly compared to the Mac and although it is likely that
more could be done to make these applications work better it seems that
Gnome and the Human Interface Guidelines has largely rejected the idea of
CSDI.

- Alan H.