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Disclaimer: I'm a Windows and Mac OS X "power user" and I'm going to be rather critical of Apple who are seen as at the forefront of UI design. I'm probably go

Disclaimer: I'm a Windows and Mac OS X "power user" and I'm going to be rather critical of Apple who are seen as at the forefront of UI design. I'm probably going to get voted down for this. I'm a proponent of the Ribbon UI and I fucking hate toolbars in OS X. I use Outlook, Word, Excel and Windows Live Mail extensively. All of which have the ribbon UI. It turns out that for the sake of actually getting stuff done, this is incredibly useful. I genuiely hardly ever need to use the context menu because what I need is there "in my face" and "obvious". While this fits newbie usage patterns perfectly, it also helps us power users who don't always switch back to the keyboard shortcuts (mouse already in hand) and don't want to jump through several hoops (like faffing with context menus) to get stuff done. On the other hand, I have absolutely no fucking idea what the hell the toolbar buttons do when I'm using Finder or Mail on OS-X (Snow Leopard and Lion). The icons are crap, there are no visual cues and I always end up dropping to a terminal to get stuff done because I simply can't be arsed to figure it out or piss around with right clicking or the awful keyboard shortcut system on OS X. I don't think people usually get that far with OS X without getting "shiny I paid $2000 so it must be good Apple mental block" as I call it. I'm fed up of so-called self-proclaimed experts chucking out blog posts criticising user interfaces while masturbating over Apple's efforts. Microsoft's UI allows you to get shit done and get it done quickly. So it might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but it works and works well for those of us with shit in our eyes. Also, Microsoft research what you want rather than tell you what you're having (like Apple do).

revscat 15y ago
Two questions: 1) Why the anger? 2) What specific tasks are difficult for you to accomplish in Finder or Mail? The default icon set in Mail (seen here: http://i.imgur.com/zYmaw.png http://i.imgur.com/zYmaw.png) do not seem to be difficult to parse. Ditto the Finder icons.
- pointyhat 15y ago
  1) 2 days with Lion and ten years of Apple fanboys whinging in my ear like angry wasps. 2) Just about everything from the awful toolbar icons (the labels are turned off by default on my MacBook) to the fact that it makes an awful mess of the messages and it's impossible to stick an image attachment in it without it trying to rape you in the eye socket with iPhoto.
  - archgrove 15y ago
    Right click, "Icon and Text". Done. Click "Attach a document" rather than "Photo Browser" - it's literally 2 icons to the left, visible by default, and uses the universal "Paperclip" motif. Done. The other is even called "Photo Browser" rather than "Attach Photo" because, you know, it uses the system wide photo browser (i.e. iPhoto). Mac Power User? Power troll, perhaps. Sigh.
    - pointyhat 15y ago
      I admit i didn't know the icon and text option. However, with iPhoto, unless you store your photos in iPhoto at which point when you hit the iPhoto library in the filesystem you are chucked into a mess of virtual filesystem. I know the file name but it's in my iPhoto library so I have to use the damn iPhoto VFS to get to it. That's a crock which means I usually a) get a mac ... b) reinstall the damn thing without iPhoto so I can get to my beloved FILES.
  - raganwald 15y ago
    You predicted that you would be downvoted for your views. Have you considered the alternate explanation that your fellow HN users appreciate a fresh perspective but don't appreciate dragging the tone of the discussion into the gutter with abusive stereotypes like "Apple fanboys?" It's getting to the point where the use of the word "fanboy" in a thread effectively ends all rational discourse. https://twitter.com/raganwald/status/108314926933753856 https://twitter.com/raganwald/status/108314926933753856
    - pointyhat 15y ago
      That was intentional. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2940569 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2940569 for further rational discussion about my hatred of Apple products and how a Macbook Pro nearly burned my house down.
Yhippa 15y ago
"Also, Microsoft research what you want rather than tell you what you're having (like Apple do)." I feel that's one contributing factor to the bloat of Microsoft Office applications. Instead of having some governance around what features to include you have them including feature after feature that may not align to something more cohesive. As a result after the nth version you have a piece of software with features buried deep within the menus. The Ribbon does help out with this a lot but I still have trouble keeping track of which feature is buried within which sub-menu of an icon on the Ribbon. As for Apple I completely agree with this. I really wish they had a unified experience like Ribbon UI. It really is a thing of beauty to use it in Windows Live Mail, Office, and even adopted by newer programs like Bizagi Process Modeler.
- lancewiggs 15y ago
  I'm an Excel geek - and yes sorry I've done far too much VBA in my time. The ribbon has all but destroyed Office for me. The commands are randomly scattered about the sub-menus of the ribbon, much of the content is stuff I will never ever use and it takes up a ridiculous amount of space. While it seems a large step backwards to folks like me who were expert users, the ribbon apparently makes it easier for "average" users. However in helping the average Microsoft seemed to forget about the power users, with the result that my speed in Excel is slower now than it was in 1995. Indeed there is almost no tangible improvement in Excel for over 10 years. The basic functions are the same, the program still crashes frequently and now the usability is worse than it used to be. No wonder I turn more and more to Google Docs and Scirvener.
  - pointyhat 15y ago
    You're only angry because you have to relearn it. You're probably used to using the Alt-F-S type key shortcuts. The rest have pretty much been left unchanged (Ctrl+S) for example. Also don't forget the clusterfuck that was the menuing system from Office XP -> Office 2003 where every time you opened a menu, everything was in a different place. Google Docs is no good for me when I have to deal with sensitive data that has to be kept in-shore as I have no idea where the hell in the world it's being stored.
oemera 15y ago
You sure are a "Mac power user" who just don't have a clue what the menu bar in OS X is for and for it... Apple is crap and theire products are overpriced and the OS is a piece of crap too because you can't figure how to use it. Are kidding me? I bet that you only once used Mac OS X in an Apple Store for 1 minute. I understand that a lot Microsoft people don't like Apple and Mac OS X but to say to be an power user of both systems and only use the terminal in OS X cause it is too complicated is little bit too much of it, isn't it? I can tell you the exact difference: I used office 2003 for a very long time and since we at work switched to 2007 I can't find anything. Ribbons everywhere but not one Ribbon is self explaining. Not even ONE. Sure you get used to it and after a lot wasted time you know where those things are now BUT getting used to it doesn't speak for a great UI design! But maybe the complicated stuff fits you better but I doubt such thing!
- pointyhat 15y ago
  I've had more Macs recently than hot dinners. I don't like them. Software...................... Firstly, the menu bar is awful. Even the shortcut to find stuff is nigh on useless (Squashed-bug + slash). You have to know what you are looking for and the terminology is terribly inconsistent between applications. There are no access keys to navigate around either. If the mouse is easier to use then it's a shit menu. Also Apple's compiler toolchain is a POS and varies so reliably between releases. XCode is buggy as hell and the multi window UI sucks (although I hear this is being fixed now). I could go on but I really want to get onto... Hardware...................... With regards to my hardware usage, I've had 8 Macs now and three extremely bad experiences: a) Mac mini failed in 2006 after owning it for 2 weeks. Took Apple 2 weeks to sort it out after denying there was anything wrong with a 100% dead box. I had to threaten to throw the fucking thing at the idiots in the apple store before they'd even think about replacing it. b) 20" polycarb intel iMac. Crashed regularly with 10.4 on it. After 2 months of arguing with Apple, they replaced the logic board and it was fine for about 6 months then the display failed. Claimed it on the insurance then. c) 2010 MacBook Pro. Absolutely dangerously retarded stupid design. Can't remove the battery. This is just dangerous. My daughter spilled water on the table (just enough to touch the side of the unit). Due to capillary action, the seam around the base of the machine sucked up all the water. On most machines, you yank the battery quickly if that happens to protect the electronics. You can't on a MacBook. Turned it over and all the liquid that had been sucked inside rained onto the logic board and shorted a few things including the battery. Whilst trying to find some damn mini screwdrivers to get the back off, it CAUGHT FIRE and was promptly chucked in the garden before it burned my house down. It burned for 10 minutes before the LiPoly cells calmed down. The inside of the machine was black and burned, the keyboard had melted and the screen had cracked due to the temperature. As a qualified electronics engineer, I can assure you that's just a shit and dangrous design. Isolating power is a fairly fundamental aspect of electronic design. This is why I hate Apple. Bad, dangerous products with shiny happy marketing.
neutronicus 15y ago
I love the ribbon. It briefly brought me back to Word from LaTeX. I am by no means a Word power user, but I found it 2007 much easier to use than 2003. (I also have a Mac and prefer it to Windows, but I interact with it mainly through the terminal, the browser, and emacs - and I can't be arsed to learn powershell or whatever in order to do the same thing on Windows)
- ams6110 15y ago
  I hate the ribbon. It was the final push for me to abandon Word and learn LaTeX. Really. I also use the shell for almost all file system manipulation, on OS X and on Windows (via Cygwin) so I know that puts me in a small minority of users.
mambodog 15y ago
Clearly you're not a Mac OS X "power user" as you claim to be, because you seem to be ignorant of very basic Mac OS features, like enabling text labels for the toolbar.

revscat 15y ago

Two questions: 1) Why the anger? 2) What specific tasks are difficult for you to accomplish in Finder or Mail? The default icon set in Mail (seen here: http://i.imgur.com/zYmaw.png http://i.imgur.com/zYmaw.png) do not seem to be difficult to parse. Ditto the Finder icons.

pointyhat 15y ago
1) 2 days with Lion and ten years of Apple fanboys whinging in my ear like angry wasps. 2) Just about everything from the awful toolbar icons (the labels are turned off by default on my MacBook) to the fact that it makes an awful mess of the messages and it's impossible to stick an image attachment in it without it trying to rape you in the eye socket with iPhoto.
- archgrove 15y ago
  Right click, "Icon and Text". Done. Click "Attach a document" rather than "Photo Browser" - it's literally 2 icons to the left, visible by default, and uses the universal "Paperclip" motif. Done. The other is even called "Photo Browser" rather than "Attach Photo" because, you know, it uses the system wide photo browser (i.e. iPhoto). Mac Power User? Power troll, perhaps. Sigh.
  - pointyhat 15y ago
    I admit i didn't know the icon and text option. However, with iPhoto, unless you store your photos in iPhoto at which point when you hit the iPhoto library in the filesystem you are chucked into a mess of virtual filesystem. I know the file name but it's in my iPhoto library so I have to use the damn iPhoto VFS to get to it. That's a crock which means I usually a) get a mac ... b) reinstall the damn thing without iPhoto so I can get to my beloved FILES.
- raganwald 15y ago
  You predicted that you would be downvoted for your views. Have you considered the alternate explanation that your fellow HN users appreciate a fresh perspective but don't appreciate dragging the tone of the discussion into the gutter with abusive stereotypes like "Apple fanboys?" It's getting to the point where the use of the word "fanboy" in a thread effectively ends all rational discourse. https://twitter.com/raganwald/status/108314926933753856 https://twitter.com/raganwald/status/108314926933753856
  - pointyhat 15y ago
    That was intentional. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2940569 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2940569 for further rational discussion about my hatred of Apple products and how a Macbook Pro nearly burned my house down.

Yhippa 15y ago

"Also, Microsoft research what you want rather than tell you what you're having (like Apple do)." I feel that's one contributing factor to the bloat of Microsoft Office applications. Instead of having some governance around what features to include you have them including feature after feature that may not align to something more cohesive. As a result after the nth version you have a piece of software with features buried deep within the menus. The Ribbon does help out with this a lot but I still have trouble keeping track of which feature is buried within which sub-menu of an icon on the Ribbon. As for Apple I completely agree with this. I really wish they had a unified experience like Ribbon UI. It really is a thing of beauty to use it in Windows Live Mail, Office, and even adopted by newer programs like Bizagi Process Modeler.

lancewiggs 15y ago
I'm an Excel geek - and yes sorry I've done far too much VBA in my time. The ribbon has all but destroyed Office for me. The commands are randomly scattered about the sub-menus of the ribbon, much of the content is stuff I will never ever use and it takes up a ridiculous amount of space. While it seems a large step backwards to folks like me who were expert users, the ribbon apparently makes it easier for "average" users. However in helping the average Microsoft seemed to forget about the power users, with the result that my speed in Excel is slower now than it was in 1995. Indeed there is almost no tangible improvement in Excel for over 10 years. The basic functions are the same, the program still crashes frequently and now the usability is worse than it used to be. No wonder I turn more and more to Google Docs and Scirvener.
- pointyhat 15y ago
  You're only angry because you have to relearn it. You're probably used to using the Alt-F-S type key shortcuts. The rest have pretty much been left unchanged (Ctrl+S) for example. Also don't forget the clusterfuck that was the menuing system from Office XP -> Office 2003 where every time you opened a menu, everything was in a different place. Google Docs is no good for me when I have to deal with sensitive data that has to be kept in-shore as I have no idea where the hell in the world it's being stored.

oemera 15y ago

You sure are a "Mac power user" who just don't have a clue what the menu bar in OS X is for and for it... Apple is crap and theire products are overpriced and the OS is a piece of crap too because you can't figure how to use it. Are kidding me? I bet that you only once used Mac OS X in an Apple Store for 1 minute. I understand that a lot Microsoft people don't like Apple and Mac OS X but to say to be an power user of both systems and only use the terminal in OS X cause it is too complicated is little bit too much of it, isn't it? I can tell you the exact difference: I used office 2003 for a very long time and since we at work switched to 2007 I can't find anything. Ribbons everywhere but not one Ribbon is self explaining. Not even ONE. Sure you get used to it and after a lot wasted time you know where those things are now BUT getting used to it doesn't speak for a great UI design! But maybe the complicated stuff fits you better but I doubt such thing!

pointyhat 15y ago
I've had more Macs recently than hot dinners. I don't like them. Software...................... Firstly, the menu bar is awful. Even the shortcut to find stuff is nigh on useless (Squashed-bug + slash). You have to know what you are looking for and the terminology is terribly inconsistent between applications. There are no access keys to navigate around either. If the mouse is easier to use then it's a shit menu. Also Apple's compiler toolchain is a POS and varies so reliably between releases. XCode is buggy as hell and the multi window UI sucks (although I hear this is being fixed now). I could go on but I really want to get onto... Hardware...................... With regards to my hardware usage, I've had 8 Macs now and three extremely bad experiences: a) Mac mini failed in 2006 after owning it for 2 weeks. Took Apple 2 weeks to sort it out after denying there was anything wrong with a 100% dead box. I had to threaten to throw the fucking thing at the idiots in the apple store before they'd even think about replacing it. b) 20" polycarb intel iMac. Crashed regularly with 10.4 on it. After 2 months of arguing with Apple, they replaced the logic board and it was fine for about 6 months then the display failed. Claimed it on the insurance then. c) 2010 MacBook Pro. Absolutely dangerously retarded stupid design. Can't remove the battery. This is just dangerous. My daughter spilled water on the table (just enough to touch the side of the unit). Due to capillary action, the seam around the base of the machine sucked up all the water. On most machines, you yank the battery quickly if that happens to protect the electronics. You can't on a MacBook. Turned it over and all the liquid that had been sucked inside rained onto the logic board and shorted a few things including the battery. Whilst trying to find some damn mini screwdrivers to get the back off, it CAUGHT FIRE and was promptly chucked in the garden before it burned my house down. It burned for 10 minutes before the LiPoly cells calmed down. The inside of the machine was black and burned, the keyboard had melted and the screen had cracked due to the temperature. As a qualified electronics engineer, I can assure you that's just a shit and dangrous design. Isolating power is a fairly fundamental aspect of electronic design. This is why I hate Apple. Bad, dangerous products with shiny happy marketing.

neutronicus 15y ago

I love the ribbon. It briefly brought me back to Word from LaTeX. I am by no means a Word power user, but I found it 2007 much easier to use than 2003. (I also have a Mac and prefer it to Windows, but I interact with it mainly through the terminal, the browser, and emacs - and I can't be arsed to learn powershell or whatever in order to do the same thing on Windows)

ams6110 15y ago
I hate the ribbon. It was the final push for me to abandon Word and learn LaTeX. Really. I also use the shell for almost all file system manipulation, on OS X and on Windows (via Cygwin) so I know that puts me in a small minority of users.

mambodog 15y ago

Clearly you're not a Mac OS X "power user" as you claim to be, because you seem to be ignorant of very basic Mac OS features, like enabling text labels for the toolbar.