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I think a lot of people are confusing "good UIs" with "pretty windows". When it comes to usability and general quality of the UI, Gnome has surpassed dumbed-dow

• ErrantX 18y ago
  I think Gnome have got it right - your correct, they are just lacking the pretties. But I think Ubuntu (and other distro) teams haven't made use of the Window managers well at all. Menu's, applications and other bits and pieces are just too confusing for the average Joe user. UI extends even beyond the windows themselves. As someone commented I think Linux devs are waking up to how important UI and user interaction is. But - It's a mess, and a hell of a job to fix - No one with the proper expertise is involved in the projects - It's not a glamorous thing to be doing (compare to "cutting edge" stuff - There seems to be this ingrained anti-M$ vibe that means no one can take influence from them. ?? UI is one thing M$ tend to do really well in Windows. They spend a LOT of money researching it.....
  • lhorn 18y ago
    Well... nobody is perfect and Gnome guys have lots of room for improvement too. But again... Quality of your UI software isn't everything. Sometimes a game-changing feature appears out of nowhere. Apple's multi-touch has changed how I use computer dramatically. And it has almost nothing to do with the software itself: it's a driver+hardware combination that I personally find impossible to live without. OSX allows me to do a lot with just one hand, so I can hold a cup of coffee in another: flip pages, zoom in/out, scroll up/down, etc. This was enough for me to stick to OSX for my daily non-programming computing needs. I even started reading books in PDF format, something I previously could believe I could do.
    • ErrantX 18y ago
      Yeh - killer features are a big bonus. Thing is they are cool to work on - and so quite a few seem to work appear, pulling people in. With OSX and Windows that's fine because IMO they have that extra level of ease and Usability that a consumer OS needs. Linux doesn't have that left - I bet a lot of people drawn in with a gimmick are left struggling with it after a few weeks... I still maintain that Linux is lacking a simple UI to pull it into the mainstream (ALL Linux not just Ubuntu).
• unalone 18y ago
  I think that some of these things are a matter of personal preference. And I agree with you on some things and I can see why you think others, but I'd still like to put in an argument about some of the things that you mention, as a member of the Loyal Opposition. Non-resizeable windows (only one corner) This is something that I found myself really liking: it makes the windows feel more stable to me. I know that I can move a window by clicking the chrome in an app, and that that's ALL clicking the chrome does, and I know what corner I need to use to resize. Going back to Windows, the windows seemed much clunkier and much less focused for precisely that reason. Non-maximizale windows This one seems odd at first, but it fits in with the aesthetic that the window scheme tries to use, namely: the windows are not the entire experience of the computer. It encourages more focus on actually manipulating items between windows when there's no option to stick the window to the sides of the screens. Frankly, I think that Apple ought to ditch the + button entirely, since I don't see a point in maximizing at all. I think that a full screen keyboard shortcut across applications would work much better for when you only need one application at a time. A few apps have it already; I think Apple ought to standardize that. File open dialog doesn't have a edit field for me to type a file name, so I can't quickly open /etc/whaterver when I need to. That's related to Finder, which I think is absolutely the worst part of the OS. Rumor has it Finder's being replaced in 10.6; we can only hope. Spaces are dysfunctional: applications aren't isolated in their virtual desktops, all mixed up together in a giant Alt+Tab list What do you mean? You can set applications either to stick to one desktop, or make it open-ended and move windows where you see fit. Or do you mean that Spaces lets you move applications that are "stuck" to other windows? In which case you're right, but when I used Spaces I found it much easier to deal with when I could quickly navigate around. (I don't see the point of virtual spaces whatsoever, so perhaps my perspective isn't the most useful here.) Finder is a joke: nearly impossible to use without a mouse and its list of limitations is well known Agreed. It's better on a laptop, since I find that multitouch makes navigation really simple when you're in the windowpane view (which, by the way, is the single best view that I've found in any OS), but it still needs a lot of fixes. Poor keyboard support (users are unable to assign hot keys they want, generally limited to a pre-defined list), many functions aren't available for keyboard users (cut/paste files, resize/move windows and many more). Hey, I can't even get to a specific top-level menu item from a keyboard. That's something even Windows 3.0 could easily do. Fuck, even most confirmation dialogs on OSX have keyboard disabled: you're forced to use the mouse to pick Yes/No/Cancel. Jesus... That's because OS X focuses on using a hybrid of keyboard and mouse. I get where you're coming from, and I think it would be nice to have more focus on keyboard-only out of the box, but there are plug-ins that fix those problems, and I've found the hybrid that Apple encourages to be pretty easy to use. Poor window/application management. The concept of "every app can be switched to and everybody shares a menu" doesn't work, and stop pretending that it does. On my Mac I have only Safari running yet my "Alt-Tab" list is HUGE: it includes background-running Audim, Skype, Performance Monitor and Finder - 6 apps total with only one (!) visible window. I'm guessing you were using a euphemism, but: what "alt-tab" list? Do you mean cmd-tab? And you're talking about a difference in window philosophy: Linux and Windows tie a single visible process to each window. Apple treats windows and applications differently: windows have their own key command to switch between. I like it a lot more that way. I like that you get a visible list of what's running in the background, and that you can quickly get to whatever process you want with the keyboard. But - as I said - a lot of that is a matter of difference. I could go on and on forever. For instance I've failed to find a working solution that allows me to use Spotlight to pull up links I saved on del.icio.us. Gnome has it built-in. The fact that Gnome has built-in support for a web application's functioning is indicative of the philosophy that I don't like: built-in support for external systems rather than an attempt to rely entirely on internals. I've never been a fan of del.icio.us, so take that entire opinion as-is. This looks like it works, though: http://www.ianhenderson.org/delimport.html http://www.ianhenderson.org/delimport.html I can't address some of your things - the only coding I do is web-related, and Coda has the best FTP support I can think of, but I'm no expert - but there are different ways to achieve usability. For me, being able to drag a song from iTunes onto another application is an example of great usability, even though it's not a power-user sort of shortcut. It's a casual shortcut, and it makes my day-to-day life a little bit easier. And that's where the gap is between the Linux crew and the Mac crew, and it's one that I doubt will be bridged any time soon. But I think that for either side to dismiss the other as blindsightedness or stupidity is a mistake. Both sides have merits for different users.
• jmah 18y ago
  - File open dialog doesn't have a edit field for me to type a file name Cmd-Shift-G (same shortcut as in the Finder)
  • tlrobinson 18y ago
    Now if only it had bash-style auto-completion...
• qqq 18y ago
  turn on full keyboard control in sys prefs. i do all dialogs with the keyboard. try using quicksilver instead of spotlight you don't have to use itunes. i rarely use it. i like the way cmd-tab includes things from all my spaces. but i can see that an option for your way could be a good addition.
• michaelneale 18y ago
  >I think a lot of people are confusing "good UIs" with "pretty windows". Very much so - although ideally you can have it all. >When it comes to usability and general quality of the UI, Gnome has surpassed dumbed-down OSX UI long time ago, they just don't have pretty windows to win the masses. As a daily user of both, I disagree. I don't think Gnome has surpassed - at least not in a meaningful way. OSX is very prescriptive on how apps behave and look (consistency) - Gnome is just one part of the problem, there are the millions of other little inconsistencies that bug me (but I guess they aren't really gnomes problem).