Re: Look and Feel

[Alex Perez]

Michael Thaler wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I really like the theme Jesse proposed on 
> http://jesseross.com/clients/gnustep/ui/concepts/01/ui.png. I think it is 
> very well done, it is elegant but still simple and easy to use. I would 
> definitely like to see something like this as the default GNUstep UI.
>
> The floating menu in this theme looks really nice, but I can also imagine a 
> MacOS like menu at the top of the screen. I don't know which one is better 
> from a usability point of view, but a menu on the top definitely has the 
> advantage of being more familiar to most users because most UI's today a the 
> menu on the top (like MacOS) or a vertical menu at the top border of the 
> window. Also, while a scroll bar on the left of the window might be better 
> then a scroll bar on the right from a usability point of view, users are more 
> familiar with the scroll bar on the right because every UI I know has the 
> scroll bar on the right.

Blahblahblah, this distills into "MacOS does it that way and  we should 
too!" I do /not/ want GNUstep to be branded a MacOS clone. We can't win 
that resource war. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. We need to go our own way. 
Hopefully you realize that if we were to implement horizontal menus *by 
default* in GNUstep (which will *NEVER* happen, for heaps of reasons 
why, search in the mailing list archives), but for the sake of this 
discussion, if we /were/ to, theoretically, we would immediately be 
branded a Mac Clone and from that point on, we've dug ourselves into a 
hole we'll never be getting out of. I don't think you realize the 
severity of the implications of this. Or maybe you do, and a mac clone 
/is/ what you want.

> I think it is very important that GNUstep has a UI which offers users from 
> MacOS/Windows/KDE/GNOME some familiarity. Designing a radically different UI 
> will just stop people from using GNUstep because most people do not bother to 
> relearn how to use an UI.

The UI design considerations don't allow for it. Do you understand this? 
I don't think you do. And honestly, there's not so much to "re-learn" as 
you claim. This is just hype.


> Also good looks are very important if GNUstep wants to attract users. I am a 
> KDE user since before KDE1.0 and I also have done some coding with Qt/KDE. 
> Personally I think the Qt/KDE API is quite nice and the underlying 
> technologies are well designed.
Except for the fact that it's written in C++, I agree :) I also agree 
that looks are important if GNUstep wants to attract users, but where we 
differ is the point at which you think we should sacrifice many of the 
things that makes GNUstep fundamentally what it is in order to get more 
people on board. I simply don't think that's necessary, and I think it 
shows a lack of understanding on your part as well.

> rest. If GNUstep wants to attract users, it has to offer a visualy pleasing 
> UI which is familiar to the users.

And I'm not arguing with you on this point. What I /am/ arguing is that 
your proposed method of going about it is asinine, because you're not 
just proposing a new look, you're proposing we blow away most of our UIG 
as well. Bad idea.

> MacOSX is probably one of the best UIs around today.
Plenty of people would disagree with you on this point. I like OS X, and 
I use it, but I don't think it's the be-all, end-all in UI design.

> I don't think GNUstep 
> should clone the MacOSX UI

Your opinions up 'til here strongly imply otherwise.

> but I think something like the theme Jesse 
> proposed, but a little bit more MacOSX like (menubar on top, scrollbars on 
> the right) would be perfect.

You can do all this with third party bundles, if it's so terrible that 
you can't be bothered to learn how to use something that's so obviously 
simple that a child could learn. I just think you're lazy, frankly.

> Apple had some good reasons why they changed the 
> Next UI to a more MacOS Classic like UI. Most of their users were familiar 
> with the MacOS Classic UI and it is not a good idea to force people to 
> abandon everything they learned and start learning things from scratch. 

It was a commercial motivation, pure and simple. I'd have done the same 
thing. We don't have commercial interests, and we shouldn't be expected 
to do the same types of things just because we want more people.

> The same goes for GNUstep: Most new GNUstep users will probably be former 
> KDE/GNOME/Windows users and they don't want to throw all their UI knowledge 
> away and do everything differently.

Hyperbole alert! THEY DO NOT HAVE TO! This is so perposterous, that it 
actually made me laugh. You act as if we're some UI from mars, when 
Win95 itself was strongly influenced by the NeXT appearance, and the 
difference between in-window menus and horizontal ones is negligible at 
best. I suspect you've never actually used a GNUstep app lcation for any 
extended period of time, because your arguments reek of n00bness.

> That said, there are of course other important issues with GNUstep. I think 
> it is still too hard to install GNUstep and there are essential programs like 
> a webbrowser missing.

We can all agree on this. but "it's still too hard to install GNUstep" 
isn't actually true, if you're using Debian, for instance, or Arch 
Linux, or FreeBSD, or Windows, or any other platform for which there are 
GNUstep packages. GNUstep is not a desktop environment. It's a 
collection of things that allow you to make applications, and allow you 
to make desktop environments. This is the most common misconception of 
GNUstep. Why else would there be desktop environments which are *BASED 
ON* GNUstep?

I thank you for your opinions, but I think you need to ask yourself why 
you think these things, because you're not thinking very critically at 
all, IMHO.

Cheers,
Alex Perez