Re: Look and Feel

[Gregory John Casamento]

Randi,

--- Randi Joseph <randi@codehalo.com> wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
> 
> I think that it is very important that certain aspects of the 
> interface be customizable. In particular, a static/floating menubar 
> option and left/right. Lets face it, left scrollbars might be 
> intuitive to old NeXT users, but it is absolutely foreign to 99% of 
> the world. It seems sensible to some degree for left-handed users, but 
> flat out disconcerting for right-handed people.
> 
> Themeability is not enough.

See WildMenus for a menubar and Camaelon for themes.  Camaelon is very
flexible.  I suggest you wait until Camaelon 2 is ready (to be announced at
FOSDEM).

> Apple spends millions of dollars getting its interface right. Even 
> Steve Jobs who manages to force a single button mouse down our throats 
> realized that an made the change.

Steve bent to the whim of the Mac faithful, who were unwilling to change.  Make
no mistake this had nothing to do with any revelation on the part of Steven P.
Jobs suddenly understanding the error of his left handed scrollbar ways.

To quote Avie Tevanian, concerning the typical Apple user's reaction to the
NeXT IU: "It's as if we're in the land of the blind offering eyes and they balk
at the color."

> Critical issues like this must be very well thought through before 
> implementation.
> 
> 
> That aside, I must say that I am VERY dissapointed to see KDE and 
> GNOME take such a lead over a GNUSTEP based environment.
> 
> It will be easier to sell (GNUSTEP/Objective-C) to developers if some 
> of apple's well thought out interface ideas are adopted.

Me too, but I'm not sure that the reasons you cite are the reasons why it
happened. :)   The main reason GNOME and KDE "took the lead" is because of
developer stupidity, yes that's right, stupidity.

Many devs don't want to learn anything new, and a lot of devs wanted a C++ or a
Java based environment because that's what was most "popular."

> -randi

Thanks for your input.

GJC

=====
Gregory John Casamento 
-- CEO/President Open Logic Corp. (A MD Corp.)
## Maintainer of Gorm (IB Equiv.) for GNUstep.