Re: Vista... is MS blatantly stealing the Mac's UI?

In article <Xns96A281DAFB109emteedee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mike Dee <mikedee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Maybe not, I think this time around they're "borrowing" heavily
> from Linux.

Well, the new search-in-Start-menu feature is pretty much just the
Spotlight menu stuffed into the right side of the Start menu.

A lot of the icons do somehow have a KDE-ish feel. I think it's the
high-gloss on everything. Most of Apple's icons have more of a matte
finish.

I see Microsoft still hasn't figured out the whole "coherent, logical
UI" thing. Take a look at:
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/showcase/lh_5098_notebook_18.jpg

I can't tell what the hell is going on there. Some of those icons seem
to represent folder-like things (though I bet they don't behave like
normal file system folders), while others seem to represent commands.
Meanwhile the whole window looks like a file system window, but looking
at the location, we see it's actually a control panel. Huh? And why are
the objects that appear in an icon view on the right duplicated in the
list-like pane on the left? And why are "Games" separate from "Installed
Programs"?

I ran into some screen shots of IE 7 today as well that seem to raise
some questions:
http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&id=102

Notice that the main menu, unlike in every other Windows app, is not at
the very top of the window. Rather it sits below the bar containing the
location field and the forward/back buttons, and the bar containing the
open tabs. At first I thought it might make some kind of sense to put it
below the tabs, since many of the menu commands would apply only to the
current tab rather than to all tabs, and putting it there would imply
that it was contained within the current tab. Upon further reflection
though, that makes no sense, because the bar containing the forward/back
buttons and location field contains *only* items that apply to the
current tab, and that's *above* the tab bar.

Also, there are a bunch of icons in the menu bar, most of which don't
even represent menus. That's rather non-standard.

Just to return to one of my long-time gripes, I see Microsoft still
names buttons with "Yes" and "No" rather than with appropriate verbs (in
this case, "Check" and "Don't Check"), which requires the user to pay
more attention reading the dialog:
http://www.flexbeta.net/images/ie7beta1/phishing_filter.gif


As long as Microsoft makes these kinds of silly, basic mistakes, Apple
has nothing to worry about on the usability front, to matter how shiny
Microsoft makes their icons.

> In the screenshots at this site, Vista looks (to me) like a cross
> between Gnome and KDE desktops:
>
> <http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_beta1_gallery_01.asp>

--
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply
ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table."
-- George W. Bush in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005
.