5 ms·

What you're saying may be true for some, but I personally don't care. The UI is functional, simple, easy to use. What I do care about, what I fear, are UI cha

by b112 4y ago

What you're saying may be true for some, but I personally don't care. The UI is functional, simple, easy to use. What I do care about, what I fear, are UI changes which remove options, obscure clarity, make workflow difficult, which seems to be 99% of UI "improvements" these days. I want descriptive text under or as buttons. I want to see, and be able to easily grab and use a scrollbar. I want things like this, and more. At the very least, if not be default, by config options. But again, the ongoing trend seems to be not only to design for looks, not usage, but also prevent user change. I am so happy with claws, so please, I say this politely, go away and take your UI thoughts with you. Please, I beg you.

na85 4y ago
The shitshow that happened to GNOME isn't the only way that UI improvements can go. Like it or not, irrespective of whether or not you personally care about UI/UX, lots of people do and bad UI/UX has turned away thousands of people from Linux and friends.
lagrange77 4y ago
He's talking about good UI and you're talking about bad UI.
- heyoni 4y ago
  It’s almost impossible to make good UI without dumbing things way down. Either that or I’m lacking imagination.
  - Maelcum 4y ago
    Just look at the Date format field in the Preferences screenshot. It's really hard to not find a more user-friendly way to do it, IMHO. UI and UX matters more than developers care to admit.
    - cuu508 4y ago
      Ok, I'll bite- What would be a functionally equivalent, but more user-friendly way to do it? (And preferably not 10x harder to implement)
      - lagrange77 4y ago
        For example an additional drop-down menu with common date string formats, where the first entry is the OS default for the given locale. Additionally one could add a text label, which displays an example date formatted by the currently selected choice.
        Maelcum 4y ago
        See? It's really not that hard, you just need to switch the perspective for a minute: what would I prefer if I were a user? Hiding the complexity from the user is one step forward to a better UI.
- mpol 4y ago
  There was only mention of a facelift, which can be good or bad. And lots of facelifts nowadays are quite bad, so I understand the concern.
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  so, he is suggesting not to change anything about claws? :-)
- layer8 4y ago
  I haven’t seen any modern UI for desktop apps which wasn’t bad in the sense the parent meant: too little affordances, not following long-established OS conventions, not using the native controls and look&feel, not being keyboard-navigable, etc.
- quantum_magpie 4y ago
  The main reason I've used claws for the last 12 years is because it looks elegant, clear, clean, simple, and most important: consistent. It doesn't need a facelift or an overhaul! In fact, as soon as that happens I (and I suspect, majority of users) will leave it forever.
bastawhiz 4y ago
Just from the screenshots: - The same icons are recycled in multiple places, like queue and outbox. Why can't they get more icons? Why aren't they distinct? - Why is it called "trash" AND "wastebin" in the same place, with two different styles of icon? - Each of the "reply", "forward", etc buttons are all menu dropdowns. Each menu is a small click target. Why isn't this just an overflow menu? Why can't these be customized? - The "connected" icon at the bottom appears to be stolen from an ancient Mozilla build (though I'm unsure of the origin). Is that truly the best visual indicator for connectivity in the year 2022? - The inbox shows the file size of emails in two separate places, with a precision that goes down to tens of bytes. Why? Your idea of good or bad UI doesn't consider that this UI already has things that could be net improved without actually removing or changing functionality. "Designed" implies that thought went into how it's used and looks. Nobody is advocating making it look like Material UI.
- toast0 4y ago
  > Why is it called "trash" AND "wastebin" in the same place, with two different styles of icon? Localization? One of the screenshots is clearly in a uk locale where it's a wastebin, not trash? However... that screenshot is still connected to a server where the trash folder is named trash. Changing the name of server folders is gross, regardless. > - Each of the "reply", "forward", etc buttons are all menu dropdowns. Each menu is a small click target. Why isn't this just an overflow menu? Why can't these be customized? How can you tell it can't be customized from the screenshots? I think it's setable in the preferences, but it's been along time since I used Claws. I don't remember drop downs next to the reply buttons (and can't fathom why they'd be there) either, though. Maybe some address selection? They can still be buttons and have drop downs next to them, though. That's nice for reply, and then have a reply all in a drop down next to it, because reply all is terrible, but sometimes needed. (Actually, in a perfect world, it might be nice to carry all the address info into the draft and be able to select people to send to later, but that's a change in substance, and has issues when you're saving drafts on imap and restoring them later) > - The "connected" icon at the bottom appears to be stolen from an ancient Mozilla build (though I'm unsure of the origin). Is that truly the best visual indicator for connectivity in the year 2022? I mean... You click on it, and get disconnected operations. You could update it, but why? It works, it's clear if you've used it. It's unobtrusive if you don't. > - The inbox shows the file size of emails in two separate places, with a precision that goes down to tens of bytes. Why? I see three sizes in the main view, one for the list, one for the whole inbox, one for the currently selected items. This is pretty handy if you are trying to clean up mail to manage a storage quota, which is fairly important for people who have a storage quota. I don't remember if Claws uses three significant figures for size or two digits after the decimal place. We can't really critique this without more information.

by b112 4y ago

na85 4y ago

The shitshow that happened to GNOME isn't the only way that UI improvements can go. Like it or not, irrespective of whether or not you personally care about UI/UX, lots of people do and bad UI/UX has turned away thousands of people from Linux and friends.

lagrange77 4y ago

He's talking about good UI and you're talking about bad UI.

heyoni 4y ago
It’s almost impossible to make good UI without dumbing things way down. Either that or I’m lacking imagination.
- Maelcum 4y ago
  Just look at the Date format field in the Preferences screenshot. It's really hard to not find a more user-friendly way to do it, IMHO. UI and UX matters more than developers care to admit.
  - cuu508 4y ago
    Ok, I'll bite- What would be a functionally equivalent, but more user-friendly way to do it? (And preferably not 10x harder to implement)
    - lagrange77 4y ago
      For example an additional drop-down menu with common date string formats, where the first entry is the OS default for the given locale. Additionally one could add a text label, which displays an example date formatted by the currently selected choice.
      - Maelcum 4y ago
        See? It's really not that hard, you just need to switch the perspective for a minute: what would I prefer if I were a user? Hiding the complexity from the user is one step forward to a better UI.
mpol 4y ago
There was only mention of a facelift, which can be good or bad. And lots of facelifts nowadays are quite bad, so I understand the concern.
iforgotpassword 4y ago
so, he is suggesting not to change anything about claws? :-)
layer8 4y ago
I haven’t seen any modern UI for desktop apps which wasn’t bad in the sense the parent meant: too little affordances, not following long-established OS conventions, not using the native controls and look&feel, not being keyboard-navigable, etc.
quantum_magpie 4y ago
The main reason I've used claws for the last 12 years is because it looks elegant, clear, clean, simple, and most important: consistent. It doesn't need a facelift or an overhaul! In fact, as soon as that happens I (and I suspect, majority of users) will leave it forever.

bastawhiz 4y ago

Just from the screenshots: - The same icons are recycled in multiple places, like queue and outbox. Why can't they get more icons? Why aren't they distinct? - Why is it called "trash" AND "wastebin" in the same place, with two different styles of icon? - Each of the "reply", "forward", etc buttons are all menu dropdowns. Each menu is a small click target. Why isn't this just an overflow menu? Why can't these be customized? - The "connected" icon at the bottom appears to be stolen from an ancient Mozilla build (though I'm unsure of the origin). Is that truly the best visual indicator for connectivity in the year 2022? - The inbox shows the file size of emails in two separate places, with a precision that goes down to tens of bytes. Why? Your idea of good or bad UI doesn't consider that this UI already has things that could be net improved without actually removing or changing functionality. "Designed" implies that thought went into how it's used and looks. Nobody is advocating making it look like Material UI.

toast0 4y ago
> Why is it called "trash" AND "wastebin" in the same place, with two different styles of icon? Localization? One of the screenshots is clearly in a uk locale where it's a wastebin, not trash? However... that screenshot is still connected to a server where the trash folder is named trash. Changing the name of server folders is gross, regardless. > - Each of the "reply", "forward", etc buttons are all menu dropdowns. Each menu is a small click target. Why isn't this just an overflow menu? Why can't these be customized? How can you tell it can't be customized from the screenshots? I think it's setable in the preferences, but it's been along time since I used Claws. I don't remember drop downs next to the reply buttons (and can't fathom why they'd be there) either, though. Maybe some address selection? They can still be buttons and have drop downs next to them, though. That's nice for reply, and then have a reply all in a drop down next to it, because reply all is terrible, but sometimes needed. (Actually, in a perfect world, it might be nice to carry all the address info into the draft and be able to select people to send to later, but that's a change in substance, and has issues when you're saving drafts on imap and restoring them later) > - The "connected" icon at the bottom appears to be stolen from an ancient Mozilla build (though I'm unsure of the origin). Is that truly the best visual indicator for connectivity in the year 2022? I mean... You click on it, and get disconnected operations. You could update it, but why? It works, it's clear if you've used it. It's unobtrusive if you don't. > - The inbox shows the file size of emails in two separate places, with a precision that goes down to tens of bytes. Why? I see three sizes in the main view, one for the list, one for the whole inbox, one for the currently selected items. This is pretty handy if you are trying to clean up mail to manage a storage quota, which is fairly important for people who have a storage quota. I don't remember if Claws uses three significant figures for size or two digits after the decimal place. We can't really critique this without more information.