Look and Feel

[Michael Thaler]

On Monday 14 February 2005 22:49, discuss-gnustep-request@gnu.org wrote:

> It's NOT "just for the sake of distinctiveness". Read the damn UI
> guidelines and you'll actually understand why. They're posted at
> http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/OpenStepUserInterfaceGuideli
>nes.pdf and you clearly have some very poorly informed opinions regarding
> why certain things are done certain way. I'm not going to waste my breath
> explaining them here, when they're far more eloquently and clearly
> explained in the UIG document I posted above.
>
> Also, can you please tell me several *SPECIFIC* ideas from GNOME or KDE
> which are original to GNOME or KDE (IE which did not come from somewhere
> else)? And then can you whittle that tiny list down to the things you
> think we should actually consider implementing? ;-)

Do you really think it matters if some idea is original to GNOME, KDE or 
Windows? Do you really think it makes a UI more useable if they do not copy 
sccessful concepts from other UIs? And do you really think people will start 
using GNUstep just because it has a floating menu or scrollbars on the left?

Honestly, tell me a simple reason for an average GNOME/KDE/Windows user to use 
GNUstep today. All the major applications are either using gtk/gnomelibs or 
Qt/kdelibs and GNUstep apps on GNONE/KDE look just weird and do not fit on 
these desktops and GNOME/KDE applications would not fit in a (potential) 
GNUstep desktop at all.

Personnally I am interested in GNUstep because I like Objective-C and I 
believe the underlying framework is superior to GNOME/KDE. I started to learn 
Objective-C during Christmas holidays, but unfortunately I had to stop it 
because I had to do a lot of work at university and I still have to. I don't 
know when I can continue lerning Objective-C and the GNUstep framework, but 
at some point I will.

I am using Debian SID and when I last tried to install the GNUstep packages, 
they did not work. I started to compile GUNstep from CVS, but then I didn't 
have enough time to compile all of them and just forgot about it. But I will 
try again, when I find some time.

Call me uninformed or stupid or uncritical or whatever, but if NEXT got it all 
right and GNOME/KDE/Windows all wrong, why are people then using 
GNOME/KDE/Windows and not Nextstep/GNUstep? Maybe people are just too stupid 
to understand that they actually use badly designed UIs with bad usability 
and only a few chosen ones like you see reality as it is. But maybe 
GNOME/KDE/Windows UIs are not that bad and people use it because they offer 
good applications and people can get their work done with it?

But anyway, like I said above, I don't have enough time to get involved in the 
GNUstep project right now, so my opinion is irrelevant here anyway and your 
email makes me realize that I shouldn't have written my comments to a 
developper list where people discuss that actually code something or create 
artwork. Sorry for bothering you

take care,
Michael