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by elblanco
5748 days ago
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Ircle - Gah! That's like everything that was ever wrong with GUI design. Disconnected windows implies disconnected functionality, overly complex design, buttons . There's no indicator that the input area has anything to do with the chat log. I can see why the interface styles are moving away from that type of design. IRC is supposed to be simple Ircle makes it look like I'm piloting a nuclear sub and a squadron of UAVs at the same time. I know it's old, so it gets a free pass for not being up to date on UI design. But the thing I find hard to believe about Ircle is that it lives on Macs -- the holy sanctuary from bad UI design. (and I'd like to point out how very few controls they jam into the menu bar at top, Ircle is a perfect example of Fitt's law in non-use). CS5 - Tabs can be a powerful thing when done right, CS5 does not do them right. I strongly dislike Photoshop's tab implementation. Though I'd never in a million years hold up Photoshop (with its aging wretched evolutionary interface cruft) as an example for people to follow in UI design. Maximize - I've known many people who use the exact phrase "maximize every damn thing" when referring to people's desire to maximize windows to focus on one thing at a time. I've actually sat down with them to discuss their UI behavior and observe how they use their smaller non-maximized windows. What I discovered was fascinating. Instead of focusing on one particular thing at a time, and moving their mouse around inside screen sized real-estate, with nothing else cluttering up their visual field, they focused on one particular thing at a time except they had a much smaller area to work in, things became cluttered and they often got distracted or confused by non-relevant stuff in the background. They spent inordinate amount of time moving windows around to get them positioned well to not be distracting or so they could see them all well (as if the other document they were writing was going to suddenly change state without their notice and they wanted to see that happen - yes this was how it was described exactly to me), and fiddling with toolbars so they were "just so". If I didn't know better, I'd classify most of the behaviors as OCD type worry twitches. The real problem is that if you want to maximize and focus on a Mac, you simply can't. Whereas on Windows or many Linuxes, I can choose either method of operation -- like if I writing some code and have a separate app up logging network activity or something, I can do that. But if I'm having a particularly bad time killing a bug, I simply can't maximize and get everything else out of the way. There is a built in efficiency in killing off tasks serially that you sometimes can't get when operating in parallel. Thanks for the command-option-h tip. |
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However, I still think the multiple-window model is powerful when single-tasking with multiple tools. In XCode, for example, I always run in the "Condensed" layout; the file list is in one window, the editor is another, as are docs, the console, the debugging HUD, etc. It lets me put things where I want them to be: console and debugger on the second monitor, documentation side-by-side with the editor, etc. And I can scootch them around to make room to see a terminal window, or IRC in a dev chat, or whatever.
It means I do spend a little more time on the resize handle than I would hitting a mythical Mac "maximize" button, but trying to use single-window IDEs feels like walking in mud in comparison. (I'm looking at you, XCode 4.)
I tend to use Spaces to focus on tasks. One neat trick: you can manage windows from the Spaces zoomed-out view. Drag your IDE or text editor to another space, or shift-drag to grab all an app's windows at once. You can even engage Expose in Spaces and drag windows from that view. I never find myself wanting a window filling the screen, especially with modern resolutions.
Point taken on ircle. I'm just nostalgic.