Re: Belated look at the OSXhints April Fool's front page

Peter Ceresole <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Michael H. Phillips <mhp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You know how Omniweb and SafariStand display tabs as mini-pages? Might
that be a better solution? Click the minimise button and the window
becomes a tab, easily recognisable and easily accessed.

Well a minimized window in the Dock *does* become a mini-page. Depending
on the amount of gross detail in the window (like a chunk of picture, or
a banner, or even a headed letter) they look quite different,

The size is so small that it's generally impossible to get any clue
what's in what - I find that minimised windows do look different in some
cases, but not significantly different in others, and it's generally
impossible to get any idea of what the hell is in the window full-sized
from the minimised version.

and you
also get a a mini-symbol of the application they belong to.

I had thought to write `Oh no it doesn't' - but then I decided to take a
closer look.

And yes, there is indeed some sort of apparent anomaly/defect on each
minimised dock icon.

I'll take your word for it that it's a mini-symbol of the app the window
belongs too - it's far too small for their to be enough pixels for any
sort of sensible set of icons.

The problem is not my eyes (I've stuck my face up against the screen,
pretty much, to compensate for any problems in that area), it's just
that 1024x768 pixels for the monitor isn't enough for the job. I'd need
at least 4x the linear res (at a guess) to have enough pixels to be able
to resolve these blobs into usefully identifiable app icons, so I'd need
a monitor of 16 times the resolution for this feature to have any
possible utility at all - and even then, the eyesight of most people
would mean that they'd need to have their faces up agains the front face
of the screen...

It's all down to the BIG problem with the Dock: it's got a flat
structure, and it tries to do too much with too little space.

If the Dock icons were larger - i.e., if it weren't flat - then it'd be
more useful.

I don't have
that much trouble telling them apart.

I point blank refuse to accept that anyone could tell what was what with
the minimsed windows I see now on my Mac's Dock - unless they used Dock
magnification, or hovered the mouse over each icon to get the name up.

Yes, of course I can tell the difference between (say) a text editing
window and one containing a picture. But that doesn't help me pick
which of the (say) three minimised text editing windows I want.

And I've only got 35 items on my Dock at the moment - compared to ~150
on DragThing, my primary launch mechanism.

And of course if you hover over
them, you get the window bar content as text. Plus they always go to the
same section of the Dock, separated from the running applications. I
keep my Dock pretty small, about 95% on the 'small' end of the slider,
with magnification 95% off, and I still have little trouble working out
which minimized window is which.

Can't be done here as far as I can tell. I have no choice about Dock
size: there's almost always so much stuff on it, the icons shrink down
to incredibly tiny sizes.

I had a quick look with the size more
like 60% small, and I wouldn't want to waste that much space normally,
but on minimized pages I can see the detailed shape of the text position
on the page, and the application icon is large, and easily recognizable.

The Graphic Converter `icon on a minimised window' had me thinking it
was MacSoup at first. The icons are *TINY*.

Between all those things, I really don't understand the complaints that
have been posted here. I used WindowShade for years with the classic OS,
with tile bars dotted all over the place, and the Dock minimize is far
superior. Another example of the Dock being a great improvement over
what came before it.

Another example of Peter C. living on a different planet to me, I think.
What you report sounds perfectly reasonable - until I try it out, and
see that it's just bollocks.

Rowland.


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