Desktops

[Drake Tungsten]

I was just reminded of how annoying it can be when I tried to read what your desktop said; took me a second to realize it was complete gibberish. I'm not really that concerned with your taste in desktop backgrounds, sweetheart, so calm down. I was just making a general point.

[Asher]

So what does the desktop say?

[Q Classic]

i like mingw more than cygwin.

[Drake Tungsten]

So what does the desktop say?

Nothing, as far as I can tell. There may be some valid compounds in there, though. My kanji skills are still limited, so I'm hardly the person to ask.

[Imran Siddiqui]

In which M$ has seen fit to rip off the appearance of the Panther Finder.

They look absolutely NOTHING alike!

[Q Classic]

hush, you. you're already a commie and therefore wrong because you don't like bush, and you must realize that apple is the be all end all of design.

silly philistine.

[Spiffor]

How wonderful can the Asher / Aggie / Drake threads go?

[Drake Tungsten]

How wonderful can the Asher / Aggie / Drake threads go?

I try my best, for your entertainment.

[Asher]

It should be noted that Apple's interface guidelines clearly say the "brushed metal" interface should only be applied to devices that interface with peripherals or function as a replacement for something physical (ie, iTunes).

The Finder clearly doesn't fit in this category.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
I try my best, for your entertainment.

[Drake Tungsten]

The Finder doesn't always have a brushed metal appearance.

[Q Classic]

technically, the finder is the analogue to explorer.

it doesn't matter anyway, because fluxbox+konqueror triumphs over both.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
The Finder doesn't always have a brushed metal appearance.

Ohhh, inconsistency...another HCI no-no.

[Q Classic]

*cough* *cough* office *cough*

[Asher]

What about Office? Office UIs are remarkably consistent, even across say, PowerPoint and Word.

[Q Classic]

yes, but they're a different set from, say, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer...

[Q Classic]

granted, different programs, but i personally find it a bit odd that they would do such a thing. on the other hand, it does blend well with outlook web access and hotmail.

[Asher]

Not all interfaces are identical, nor should they be.

The Office System has a consistently similar interface across all of its systems. Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer are also very closely linked, and as such, share consistently similar interfaces.

I don't see why Word's interface should look very much like Internet Explorer's.

My "consistency" comment was in the context of one program. That is, Finder "not always having" the brushed metal L&F.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
yes, but they're a different set from, say, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer...

Visual Studio, etc.

I absolutely hate the way the Common Places thing in Office and Visual Studio doesn't get its stuff from the same registry thing that every normal application does. The default places are absolutely useless for me.

[Asher]

Originally posted by St Leo
Visual Studio, etc.

I absolutely hate the way the Common Places thing in Office and Visual Studio doesn't get its stuff from the same registry thing that every normal application does. The default places are absolutely useless for me.

This is a valid complaint. It bothers me, too.

The technical reason behind it is that Visual Studio and Office don't use the standard MFC. They use a customized version that forked off before the new one in Windows XP, etc. Or, more accurately, the new MFC forked off from the ones developed for Office and Visual Studio.

They should definitely work on making it more consistent.

[Drake Tungsten]

Ohhh, inconsistency...another HCI no-no.

The Finder employs the exact kind of inconsistency called for in that Ars Technica article you linked to. Make up your mind...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
The Finder employs the exact kind of inconsistency called for in that Ars Technica article you linked to. Make up your mind...

The Ars Technica article says the look and feel should be inconsistent?

What page was that on?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Can someone explain how the finder and Longhorn explorer look alike? Or is Aggie just blind?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Can someone explain how the finder and Longhorn explorer look alike? Or is Aggie just blind?

It's not that he's blind, it's that he lacks any sort of analytical or comparative skills.

[Drake Tungsten]

What page was that on?

I don't remember. It's the part where they talk about leaving the "Spatial Finder" as the base of the operating system and adding web browser-like elements to it. In the current version of Panther, the brushed metal appearance is used for the web browser-like parts of the Finder, while the old, white style is used for windows that are part of the "spatial finder".

[Q Classic]

they're both grey, and have huge top halves.

i think that's where it's coming from.

even so, plex is f'ckin' ugly.

[Asher]

I think Agathon focuses far too much on appearance than functionality. It's called an interface because of its interaction with the user. When he said that MS ripped off Finder's interface, I looked at the functionality of the two and see them as COMPLETELY different.

But now that I see his entire case is built on the fact that they're gray with large top halves...I can definitely see how he's not very adept with computers, or at least computer terminology.

Interfaces are too often confused with look and feels. Plex and Aqua and Brushed Metals are all look and feels more than they are interfaces.

But what's even better, is everyone thinks Plex is ****ing hideous, and Agathon is talking about how it's ripped off of MacOS. That's just great.

[Ted Striker]

Hey, any of you guys found a free X emulator besides Cygwin that works well on Windows?

The commercial products work well but they are like $1500 a pop and BLOATED.

Cygwin works sometimes but it's really clunky.

I need to get my x86 Solaris machine back up and running, it never fails with the X stuff.

[Q Classic]

i like how finder looks, fwiw. i like how windows classic explorer in xp looks, too (with the sidebar, but without the fisher-price).

really, arguing about the looks and what not is silly--the question that should be asked is, does the interface do what you want it to do, transparently and easy for the user?

the answer in both cases is yes. different systems, so people get used to them in different ways, but the rules of operation are easily grasped and internalized.

i personally can't figure out what's so hard or different between the two to get used to, because imho, all guis are by and large the same--kde is gnome is osx/aqua is windows/themes. drag and drop, rename, delete, open folder, all are roughly similar. so...

the only thing that really separates them is the cli, and that's where beauty lies. in xp, you do have options that make it approach a posix cmdline, which is nice, although then it becomes trouble when you go to a friends' install where they don't have the options on, so you keep typing ls clear ls clear ls clear rm mv cp and NOTHING WORKS!.

osx has a posix cmdline, but then nothing is where it should be. bah.

[Asher]

I've always been incredibly frustrated when using Finder when traversing deep directory structures.

Also, serious question: How do you manually type in a directory path in the Finder? That's how I often navigate to the directories I want. Windows-E, tab, then type in, say, "downloads" to quickly go to C:\Downloads...