3 ms·

Raskin makes a special exception to his "No Modes" rule when it comes to paint and drawing programs, as he admits this is an obvious case where modes are needed

Raskin makes a special exception to his "No Modes" rule when it comes to paint and drawing programs, as he admits this is an obvious case where modes are needed. He does provide a mechanism though, that could be used to make photoshop modeless: Quasimodes. A quasimode is a mode that is active only as long as a particular key is being held down. The pressure of the key on the user's finger is what makes the user constantly aware of the mode. Caps-lock is a mode. The shift-key is the quasimodal version of that same function. quite a lot of photoshops toolbar buttons are assigned keys already. M for marquee for instance. Modal keys. like caps-lock. Those modal keys could be switched to quasimodal keys that act essentially like extra mouse keys. Photoshop already has 3 modal quasi-modal "modifiers" keys, in shift, alt, and (command/control), whose quasi mode changes depending on which mode you are in. So imaging a modeless photoshop where each tool and function is invoked by holding down a chord on the keyboard. Ta-da. Modeless photoshop. Of course, Such a photoshop would be much more difficult to learn-as we are sacrificing discoverability. but it it would be easier to use for an expert. and discoverability could probably be recovered using another of raskin's ideas: an dynamic displayed list of commands. Say you hold down the "m" key, and it lists in large type on screen what function that is, and what other keys you can hold down to modify it, and what functions those do. This would be pretty awesome. But it will never happen because grumpy coders like vim and think it's great, and thus stand in the way of UI progress.

bengillies 13y ago
It wouldn't be "pretty awesome". It would be almost entirely unusable. At the moment, Photoshop is difficult to use, but has thousands of features (I have no idea exactly how many) that presumably professionals make use of, at least to some degree or another. Try making a modeless version of Photoshop like you describe and most people would have to look up the key combination before doing anything, at least until they've learned all the modifier keys (which sounds remarkably like emacs). Not exactly the paragon of usability. As with almost everything, UI is a tradeoff between several different factors. In the case of modes, the applications that people like them in tend to be used by professionals or experts for a very specific purpose. In such a case, the utility, power and expressiveness is much more important than the initial ease of use. If your aim is to create something that doesn't have thousands of features and should be usability immediately (or relatively so) by new users, then modes are likely a bad idea; if your aim is to create something powerful for experts who will be using it 8 hours a day for the next 5 years, modes may be worth considering.
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago
  "It wouldn't be "pretty awesome". It would be almost entirely unusable." Compared to the paragon of usability that photoshop represents today? On its own, chords would hurt discoverability. But as I wrote originally, discoverability can be restored using another of raskin's ideas, a dynamic style of command line demonstrated by his son Aza in the Ubiquity and Enso projects, and also present in the Sublime Text 2 text editor (called the command palette there)-- In essence, if your program has thousands of features, then make them invokable from an efficient specialised search engine. If we are using chords, make the available chords discoverable and visible in the UI. You can entirely avoid modes AND have an efficient and powerful interface for experts to use day in and day out. They are not opposing forces.

bengillies 13y ago

It wouldn't be "pretty awesome". It would be almost entirely unusable. At the moment, Photoshop is difficult to use, but has thousands of features (I have no idea exactly how many) that presumably professionals make use of, at least to some degree or another. Try making a modeless version of Photoshop like you describe and most people would have to look up the key combination before doing anything, at least until they've learned all the modifier keys (which sounds remarkably like emacs). Not exactly the paragon of usability. As with almost everything, UI is a tradeoff between several different factors. In the case of modes, the applications that people like them in tend to be used by professionals or experts for a very specific purpose. In such a case, the utility, power and expressiveness is much more important than the initial ease of use. If your aim is to create something that doesn't have thousands of features and should be usability immediately (or relatively so) by new users, then modes are likely a bad idea; if your aim is to create something powerful for experts who will be using it 8 hours a day for the next 5 years, modes may be worth considering.

TheZenPsycho 13y ago
"It wouldn't be "pretty awesome". It would be almost entirely unusable." Compared to the paragon of usability that photoshop represents today? On its own, chords would hurt discoverability. But as I wrote originally, discoverability can be restored using another of raskin's ideas, a dynamic style of command line demonstrated by his son Aza in the Ubiquity and Enso projects, and also present in the Sublime Text 2 text editor (called the command palette there)-- In essence, if your program has thousands of features, then make them invokable from an efficient specialised search engine. If we are using chords, make the available chords discoverable and visible in the UI. You can entirely avoid modes AND have an efficient and powerful interface for experts to use day in and day out. They are not opposing forces.