Re: Look and Feel

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 13 Feb 2005, at 08:03, Randi Joseph 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.

I don't think it's an issue of what is intuitive or handedness (I'm 
right handed)  ... I guess that the fact that you think having the 
scrollbar on the right is intuitive is a testament to the pervasiveness 
of the ms-windows/mac interface based purely on an early (historical) 
design decision.
The reason for having the scroller on the left is that many/most 
windows contain text, and our text (in the west) tracks from left to 
right and top to bottom.

I agree that having the option of placing the scroller on the right is 
useful ... but my reasoning  is different ... we need that option for 
three cases -
1. eastern users who have text tracking  from right to left
2. people brought up with ms-windows etc who just can't  or don't want 
to change the habits they learned.
3. people who just like the scroller on the right ... the fact that a 
scroller on the left is fundamentally more convenient for most people 
does not mean that it's best for everyone.

> Themeability is not enough.
>
> 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.

If you mean handedness of scrollers, I believe Apple/Steve *started* 
the right handed scroller (unless you count xerox) and most systems 
mindlessly copied that.

If you mean that Apple has changed to have a two button mouse, I'm glad 
to hear it ... I resent the single button on my apple laptop.

> It will be easier to sell (GNUSTEP/Objective-C) to developers if some 
> of apple's well thought out interface ideas are adopted.

NeXTstep introduced a lot of gui improvements (they were able to learn 
from the design errors of MacOS/MS-Windows).  Some of these got into 
MacOS-X, but others were left out because of the difficulty of changing 
the habits of the existing userbase when Apple tried to move people to 
MacOSX.  Basically Apple tried to make NeXTstep look as much like MacOS 
as they could, in order to minimise disruption, but that meant throwing 
out some improvements.

So at present in MacOS-X we have a user interface consisting of -
Many features inherited from the early MacOS, some bad, some good.
Some features introduced by NeXTstep to fix early MacOS errors.
A few features introduced recently which are genuinely new.

Given that situation, I wonder what you mean by
"some of apple's well thought out interface ideas"
What are the things that you think are good new ideas we could adopt?