Re: scrollbars [was: Re: really attracting developers]

[Phil Taylor]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <jhclouse@charter.net>
To: "phil taylor" <ptay1685@bigpond.net.au>
Cc: <discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 5:22 AM
Subject: Re: scrollbars [was: Re: really attracting developers]


> ---- phil taylor <ptay1685@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> > The many different ideas of what consitutes the ideal GUI, with what is
> > silly to one person is sensible to another, shown on this mailing list,
> > clearly seem to demonstrate that a GUI that is to appeal to a wide
> > audience needs to be configurable. Anything less is destined only to
> > find a small niche market at best.
>
> The Windows GUI is not configurable at all (you can change cosmetic things 
> about it, but you cannot use vertical floating menus or a Mac style menu) 
> and it dominates the market.  The Mac GUI is not configurable either, 
> really, and it dominates the little space that Windows leaves behind.  So 
> no, GUI configurability is not the key to success.  The key to success is 
> "being in the right place at the right time."  GNUstep has suffered from 
> this more than anything else, as has the HURD.  If GNUstep had been in its 
> current state in 1996-1997, things would probably have been quite 
> different.  Likewise, if OPENSTEP/Mach had matured in the early 80s 
> instead of the early 90s, it would very likely have been much more 
> successful.

We are talking about GUI's on Linux, not GUI's in general. The Windows GUI 
is popular because Windows is popular and you cant have one without the 
other.
Linux is different - you have the choice of GUI's, and both KDE and Gnome 
are already established and are highly configureable. People are used to 
having these facilities, and generally people dont like giving things up. I 
am sure that if someone were to release an configureable add on GUI for 
Windows (assuming it were technically possible which it is not) it would get 
a lot of attention. But then Windows users have never had that facility, so 
they dont miss it.

So i stand by what I have said. Gnome and KDE are established and highly 
configurable. If GNUstep si to compete or even displace these GUI's it has 
to be percieved to be at least as up to date as they are. GUI's of the past 
used to be battleship grey, and GNUstep looks distinctly as if from an 
earlier age - which of course it is, or at least the system it is 
replicating is. I seem to remember that NextStep ran on the Next machine 
which had monochrome graphics (at least initally), or perhaps it was colour 
but memory would have been limited? So an all grey scheme would have been 
acceptable in those times.

> That being said, I'm glad that themes and different menu styles are 
> available in GNUstep and I think the default theme for GNUstep should be 
> Nesedah.

I am surprised that this is the case, since you never get to see any 
evidence of it. Why not make it more obvious? For example every time Gnome 
or KDE release a new version they supply new splash screens, colour schemes 
and themes. It cant take that much developer resources to at least change a 
few colours.

> > When you design an interface, you cannot assume that what you like
> > someone else will like. Perhaps thats obvious.
>
> Well, it's more than just what somebody will like.  In the case of Apple 
> and NeXT, significant psychological research went into studying the way 
> humans read, write, and interact with computer interfaces.  As an example, 
> we read from left-to-right in Western cultures and this effects our 
> priority when performing a visual scan of an object.  That's a fact that 
> cannot be denied and has nothing to do with subjective appraisal of an 
> interface.

I guess all that research is irrelevant from the perspective of any 
particular user, such as myself (or you). I know what I like and what I am 
comfortable with. I basically dont give a rats arse that some researcher in 
Cupertino thinks the scroll bar should be on the left if i want it on the 
right. And these issues are so subtle and complex that researchers are 
rarely able to come to an obvious and precise conclusion. Two companies will 
both employ such researchers, and then come out with different solutions. If 
this research yielded concrete and definitive results, then every GUI would 
look the same. no? But they dont.

One thing that surprises me is that so much research has apparently been 
done on the GUI to improve user-computer interaction, and yet so little is 
done in other areas. Witness the appalingly dumb Unix directory structure, 
which is about as user friendly as a shark. A six year old kid could come up 
with a better structure than this. Or the idiotic situation with package 
installation, whereby under Unix you can install a package and then have no 
idea whatsoever how to get it to run, or even where the hell it is on the 
hard drive. e.g. you install a package from a web site advertising a product 
called "DVD Scan", install it, and then stare at the blank desktop and 
wonder "where is it" and "how do i run it". You scour the menus of the GUI 
but after ten minutes theres no sign of it. So you fire up a console and 
type in "dvdscan" - nothing. So then you try "DVDscan", "DVDScan" DvDscan" - 
still nothing. Finally you rummage through the hard disk and find that its 
called "dvd-scan" with a hyphen. Now just how dumb is this? Perhaps someone 
needs to do a year long research project costing millions of dollars to 
determine that it might be agood idea to tell the user the name of the 
package in advance, or to stick it on a menu.

Its these reasons why Windows is still so popular. You can install software 
and find it afterwards.

> Now what you like on first contact has a lot to do with previous 
> experience but very little to do with actual suitability.  The GUI for 
> Blender 3D is an excellent example of this.  It's different from other 
> similar tools and people often complain about it when first using it.  But 
> after a short time, they never want to go back to anything else.  The 
> increase in productivity and decrease in frustration is impossible to 
> argue against.