Re: scrollbars [was: Re: really attracting developers]

[Charles Philip Chan]

On 2006-09-04 18:38:00 -0400 phil taylor <ptay1685@bigpond.net.au> 
wrote:

> Can anyone (try to) explain the merits of the floating menus? I fail 
> to
> see any advantages over the more usual menus which are either attached
> at some point to the application windows, 

I don't have to move my mouse as much:

        http://www120.pair.com/mccarthy/nextstep/intro.htmld/

> or can be invoked by clicking anywhere within the window.

The menu can also be invoked by right clicking on any NeXT/Gnustep 
apps.

> The menus of multiple applications all look the same - only the title
> bar of the base menu distinguishes them, so with lots of apps open it
> gets harder and harder to locate which menu goes with which app.

WTF? Only the action app have its menu showing.

> For every app open you now have two windows (main app window and menu
> window) open instead of one. So now you have two windows to position. 
> Is
> that an advantage?

Yes. Menus can also be pinned or put off-screen.

> I hardly see how anyone can believe that the dangling menu looks 
> better.
> I suppose it looks odd to me largely due to it being different to the
> usual paradigm with which I am familiar, but even taking that into
> account it is still rather odd.

Takes a while to get use to, but easy to use once you get use to it.

> As to the scrollbars being on the left, I have no basic objection to
> that, except to say that it makes sense to have the scroll bars on the
> same side as the close button, since those two operations happen most
> frequently. You open the window, scroll the text to locate something,
> then close it. If the close button is on the right and the scroll bar 
> on
> the left, then that would indicate extra mouse movements are required 
> in
> that situation.

Not if you are in edit something. Close is put in a more difficult 
place to get at to prevent users from accidentally closing the window.

> Overall, to me the GNUstep (and by defenition Openstep) interface 
> seems
> to me odd for no good reason, as if it was dreamed up by marketing
> executives who see the need to differentiate a product against its
> competitors.

Please read the reasoning in this page before commenting further:

        http://www120.pair.com/mccarthy/nextstep/intro.htmld/

Charles

-- 
"The move was on to 'Free the Lizard'"

   -- Jim Hamerly and Tom Paquin (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and 
Associates)

RFC3156.txt
Description: Text document

pgp4Km4n_tbOA.pgp
Description: PGP signature