Re: Apple and 64 bit apps - the latest in this series

"Daniel Johnson" <danieljohnson2@xxxxxxxxxxx> stated in post
icudnUv9Iskub1XVnZ2dnUVZ_i2dnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on 9/11/08 3:28 AM:

I am talking about things that hurt usability.

That makes your case the harder: you have to show that whatever you are
complaining about actually does hurt usability. Inconsistency is easier to
demonstrate.

One can look at the inconsistencies and get a pretty good idea about how the
effect usability (though to know for sure you may need to do usability
testing)

This is just going to be argument by "I said so".

No - there is research to back up what kind of inconsistencies are
detrimental and what kinds are beneficial. Granted, the exact details will
differ so there will be some room for disagreement - and even then the only
way to *really* know is with user testing, but educated guesses with
reasonable confidence can be made.

[snip]
Was iTunes changed when it came to Windows? I thought it was like that well
before Apple did that.

Well, I am sure they were planning on the move to Windows from well before it
was made public. I do not recall how it was at the start.

I believe iTunes was pretty nonstandard from day one, back on OS 9. Though at
that time, they may well have been thinking of porting, not to Windows, but
not OS X!

Could be... though to move to OS X they would just need it to be Carbon -
which it is... and Carbon apps can very much fit in on OS X.

[snip]
I'd be happier if Word 2007 had got with the program on the print dialog.
It's something of a flagship application for Vista's new UI style, and using
Ye Olde Print Dialog is not really, you know, the thing.

Just checked - yeah, Word 2007 still has non-standard Print and Save dialogs.
At least the title bars are consistent!

I checked that also. The *Save* dialog is, in fact, the standard Vista save
dialog- the latest version. IE, WordPad, and Paint all use it as well.

The print dialog in Word 2007 is old.

Here are some save dialogs on XP:

<http://tmp.gallopinginsanity.com/save-dialogs.gif>

Clearly Word is not using the system print dialog... while it might look
like the system one on Vista I doubt it is. Would have to change the system
one to see, I suppose.

On OS X there are replacements and add-ons... and they effect all the
programs any general user is likely to use.

And then look at the "Save" dialogs - works is completely different... and
the side bars are different for MS Office (though that is not completely
standard)

That's just a feature of the standard dialog. It's in the new Vista one too.

At least in XP, if you change the side panel icons they do not carry over to
MS Office. That is broken.

In XP, users cannot change the side panel in any supported way. I do not
know how you were trying to do it.

Non-supported Tweak UI.

In Vista, they can. And it does carry over. However, I believe that only the
new Vista-style save/open dialogs have that feature.

[snip]
It will do just that, as long as you don't try to customize the dialog. If
you do so, it will stick to the old dialog so your customization does not
break.

Why not have the ability to add "extras" to the standard dialog.

This is indeed one of the things you can do. That area at the bottom of the
Word 'Save' dialog where you can set the keywords, author, and create
thumbnail? Those are extras.

I was thinking more like this:

<http://www.stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/>

Apparently that is what OS X does.

OS X does do that, and that's fine. It's one reason why Apple has not
changed the save/open dialogs very much, though. Once you are sharing your
UI with a guest, radical changes will break stuff.

Apple *has* changed their Open/Save dialogs:

<http://tmp.gallopinginsanity.com/osx-save-dialogs.gif>

The one on the left is older... the one on the right is current... both from
Safari.

* The sidebar is much changed in look and functionality.
* There is a new view (and new view options).
* You can search!

Both, though, are still very blurry... damned annoying when you are trying
to read the names of the files! :)

What Apple has done, as I understand it, it change the controls that are in
the save panel, but retain the same layout. The area for 'extras' winds up
being in the same place, and the same size, and the surrounding dialog looks
similar (but not identical) to application code running there.

This doesn't offer as much compatibility as MS's approach, but it's not that
bad. It's a compromise- you get greater consistency at the cost of limited
upgrades to the form and less compatibility.

The layout is similar (it works well, why change it?)... the print dialogs,
however, have changed even that.

[snip]
Well, when you created that page, the Works save dialog shown was not quite
as out of date. :D

Anyway, on Vista there is yet another new Save dialog- it's very different
and rather OS X-y. The print dialog has not changed. I note that Word,
WordPad, Paint and IE all use the Vista style save dialog.

Good... maybe MS is getting a clue.

Is it good that Vista has *yet another* save dialog (making 3 in total), or
good that it's rather OS X-y, or good that they didn't do the same thing
with the print dialog?

If you selected the right versions of the right apps, you could make a much
more convincing looking web-page about the save dialogs: just make sure you
include the Win95, WinXP, and Vista style dialogs, and throw in an old Win16
file dialog and some horrendous custom job while you are at it. You can get
5 completely different save dialogs, at least four of which are "Microsoft".

:D

I selected common apps without checking first - to be fair.


[snip]
That's compatibility again. But Apple does not change their dialogs nearly
as much between releases, and cares less about compatibility anyway. So they
don't keep old versions of the save dialog around.

OS X is *more* consistent... if Apple does not really care then how did that
come about?

You need to read the rest of that sentence, where it says "... about
compatibility".

What Apple things about consistency is hard to judge.

They spent years being as inconsistent as humanly possible, with a zillion
different UI styles. But now in Leopard they've cut back on that, at least as
far as the OS proper goes. Yet they haven't eliminated it across all their
apps. And there is Time Machine, which is consistent with nothing; but then
Time Machine ignores every tenet of good UI design *anyway*.

It offers a very different - if slightly overdone - context change... seems
to work well (though it lacks some features such as *what* files changed...
I hope they correct that some day!)

What will Apple do going forward? Will GarageBand lose the wood paneling? Will
'brushed metal' creep back in?

I have no idea, at this point.

The window dressing changes were not that big of a deal - though of no
value, either, that I could see. The basic controls were the same... the
widgets and text in the title bars was the same.

Still, it was of no value and I am glad they ditched it.



--
One who makes no mistakes, never makes anything.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Word 2007 Learning Curve
    ... After all the 'waffle' we were given about usability and how the whole area around the Pizza in Word and Start Menu in Vista are 'sensitive' areas so the users don't actually have to hit the buttons dead-on, it is a shame that the team designing the dialog selectors hadn't been party to the same brainwashing. ... dialogs out" although they will probably give some of them a facelift the next ... And how I wish these 'dialog launchers' were activated by clicking anywhere ... the bar is functionless other than for display ...
    (microsoft.public.word.newusers)
  • Re: Apple and 64 bit apps - the latest in this series
    ... It's in the new Vista one too. ... I believe that only the new Vista-style save/open dialogs have that feature. ... It's one reason why Apple has not changed the save/open dialogs very much, ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: What are Vistas problems.. really?
    ... done anything other than play with vista a little bit- from my ... there simply aren't that many uac dialogs. ... I know many large businesses are not planning on going to Vista... ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: What are Vistas problems.. really?
    ... topic, if you recall, is *Vista*, not your views of people. ... habits of ignoring dialogs. ... company you work for upgrade to xp, what was the decision to upgrade ... and they did their own internal usability studies. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: D2007 vs MS Visual Studio 2005
    ... tried it since late Vista Release candidates. ... You should get the new Vista-style open / save dialogs by default if you ... I've developed Win32 apps using Blackbox Component Pascal (that ... SP1 in regards to Managed code C++/CLI so I havent run the quick app ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)