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[#] Thu May 10 2018 17:28:50 EDT from LoanShark <>

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their attention to UI standards has fallen prey to Microsoft-style
"gamification," where they leave it to the user to poke and prod a
program to discover what is and isn't a control, and even then, to

I don't think of this as Microsoft style - it's the industry's new normal and it's based on the smartphone way of building UI'
s. So Apple very much did this to themselves with iPhone

[#] Fri May 11 2018 09:45:21 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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And Windows 95? Really?

Not really, but more people are familiar with Windows 95 than with RISC OS, from which the Windows 95 UI was copied. One task bar, one launcher menu, and when a window is maximized it spans the entire screen except the task bar. Add NOTHING ELSE. Yes, this is my idea of desktop UI perfection. It's only gone downhill from there.

All I want is zooer's list of things that I want. I think a distinctive theme will appear.

[#] Mon May 14 2018 11:42:48 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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No, the keyboard has been fine. I don't like the key travel, but it's

working okay. I despise the touch bar.

The touch bar might be Apple's prototype for the entire keyboard.

Those keyboards are becoming a problem [ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/14/apple_macbook_keyboards_defective_claims_lawsuit/ ] -- they stop working if even the tiniest bit of dust gets under a key, to the point where a lawsuit has now been filed about it.

I'm starting to wonder whether Apple's next generation of laptops will have completely non-moving keys. No chiclets, no switches, zero travel, just a board full of touch-sensitive squares. It would be horrible to type on, and would be hailed as a wonderful innovation that all the other manufacturers would then put in their own computers.

[#] Tue May 15 2018 11:23:48 EDT from Ragnar Danneskjold

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I certainly hope not.... But they've got the prototype for that already.
It's the iPad.

[#] Wed May 16 2018 13:27:44 EDT from kc5tja

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I don't think of this as Microsoft style - it's the industry's new
normal and it's based on the smartphone way of building UI'
s. So Apple very much did this to themselves with iPhone

The industry follows what Microsoft spearheaded. Prior to the release of Microsoft's sorry excuse for UI guidelines, companies actually, as a rule, invested in UI research. They'd have their products tested with focus groups to see how their UI choices impacted usability. Not any more. Today, they rely on A/B testing on websites if you're lucky; complete random crapshoot if not. Microsoft was the first to do this, and since they dominated the desktop arena, everyone and their grandmother started making UIs just like them. They're successful, and everyone before them has done basic UI research to justify their decisions, so MS had to as well, right?

Turns out, no.

[#] Wed May 16 2018 13:35:21 EDT from kc5tja

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Not really, but more people are familiar with Windows 95 than with
RISC OS, from which the Windows 95 UI was copied. One task bar, one
launcher menu, and when a window is maximized it spans the entire
screen except the task bar. Add NOTHING ELSE. Yes, this is my idea of

desktop UI perfection. It's only gone downhill from there.

Not only that, but Windows 95 has a very pleasant semi-3D interface that makes controls distinctive, but not so skeumorphic that they're an annoyance.
It's pretty on low-color-depth and true-color displays. Its aspect ratios are perfect for PC monitors (contrast with AmigaOS, where its proportions were decided by NTSC aspect ratios, and would look horrible on PC or HDTV displays).

That being said, I'm more a fan of OS/2 V2.0 (not V3.0, not V4.0, and absolutely nothing post-IBM). Why? For the same reasons as I like Windows 95, only *better*. Great proportions. Very smooth, fine lines that are visually distinctive yet not obtrusive. Also, it holds truer to the RISC-OS user interface than Windows 95 ever did, wherein everything was drag-n-drop accessible or configurable.

To this day, I use ROX-Filer as my preferred desktop environment on Linux, under the i3 window manager with bare-bones GTK and the minimum amount of GNOME cruft that I can get away with. The result is very pleasant, VERY fast, and extremely easy to use once you habituate to the i3 key-bindings (which, for me, took all of one day of practice).

[#] Wed May 16 2018 13:38:19 EDT from kc5tja

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Those keyboards are becoming a problem [
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/14/apple_macbook_keyboards_defect

ive_claims_lawsuit/ ] -- they stop working if even the tiniest bit of

dust gets under a key, to the point where a lawsuit has now been filed

about it.

Not only that, but they fail from regular use without any debris as well.
My MacOS keyboard started to fail after mere months of regular use in an office environment. They use simple dome switches -- you know the type if you've ever unscrewed and taken apart an old Atari 2600 joystick. They're cheap and low-profile, but extremely prone to failure due to oxidation and other wear on the contacts.

[#] Wed May 16 2018 14:10:07 EDT from Ragnar Danneskjold

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Personally I liked NeXTSTEP's UI. Simple and elegant. Probably would have worked well with today's touch screens now that I'm thinking about it.

[#] Wed May 16 2018 14:27:17 EDT from fleeb <>

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All we ever really needed is ncurses. All this gui stuff just wastes bandwidth.

[#] Thu May 17 2018 12:36:27 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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Not only that, but Windows 95 has a very pleasant semi-3D interface
that makes controls distinctive, but not so skeumorphic that they're an

annoyance.
It's pretty on low-color-depth and true-color displays. Its aspect
ratios are perfect for PC monitors (contrast with AmigaOS, where its
proportions were decided by NTSC aspect ratios, and would look horrible

on PC or HDTV displays).

Yes. That. You said it much better than I did.

Why do we have to deal with such extremes? We don't want flat, and we don't want skeumorphic. We want controls with simple bevels on them so that you know they are controls. ffs ... we solved this problem a quarter-century ago, and then once everyone knew without ambiguity what a button looked like, we screwed it up ... twice!

Look at this Mac OS 9 screenshot: [ https://guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/desktop/full/macos90.png ]

You don't have to interact with it to visually identify the controls that you can interact with. Anything that is a button that you can push, has a bevel. Anything that you can drag, has a grippy texture.

Some of the same design elements are also visible in this Windows 95 screenshot:
[ https://guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/desktop/full/win95.png ]

This was the pinnacle of desktop UI design. Then *everyone* screwed it up.

[#] Thu May 17 2018 12:38:21 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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Personally I liked NeXTSTEP's UI. Simple and elegant. Probably would

have worked well with today's touch screens now that I'm thinking about


NeXTSTEP UI should have *been* the Mac OS X UI. And when The Steve returned to Apple he basically forced a bunch of NeXT elements into Mac OS, but the result was a bad hybrid. It's the revenge porn of user interfaces.

[#] Wed Jun 13 2018 18:18:02 EDT from Ragnar Danneskjold

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So the haptic feedback on my Macbook's laptop died.... Has to be sent back to Apple for repair. 5 days. First time I've ever had a laptop have a problem....
Feh.

[#] Wed Jun 13 2018 19:11:49 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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Did you drop it?



[#] Thu Jun 14 2018 07:11:40 EDT from Ragnar Danneskjold

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2018-06-13 19:11 from IGnatius T Foobar
Did you drop it?


Nope.... It died while I was using it. Was working fine for an hour. Clicked back to back - one time worked, after that dead. So weird. GI've got to set up another machine so I can send this in.

[#] Fri Jun 15 2018 13:37:57 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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I think you dropped it. Apple will agree.

[#] Tue Jul 10 2018 15:49:55 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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As a member of the VAST majority of smartphone users who do not use a Crapple iPhone ... I am really getting tired of dealing with people who push the "like" button on a text message in iMessage and carelessly assume it works the same way everywhere. Those of us with standards-compliant phones instead of Crapple phones receive an entire copy of the original message, prefixed with "<contact name> liked..." in front of it.

This is stupid and annoying and Crapple really needs to stop this shit, or at least suppress it when exchanging messages with non-Crapple users.

That is all.

[#] Tue Jul 10 2018 15:53:36 EDT from Ragnar Danneskjold

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You mean the vast majority in third world countries.... Certainly not in the US....


I've been doing some consulting for a group of summer camps recently, where there are hundreds of devices online in each.... iPhones outnumber others 3 to 1. Out of the Android phones, the 2 of every 3 devices is a Samsung.


[#] Wed Jul 11 2018 09:25:35 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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Hope you're ok with having to manipulate the statistical inputs to compensate for the fact that your phone OS is a distant second. You could use that skill to get a global warming job.

In any case the complaint still stands, it's annoying, and I need to find a way to remotely detonate phones belonging to people who use this function.

[#] Wed Jul 11 2018 13:46:59 EDT from Freakdog

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Tue Jul 10 2018 15:49:55 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored
As a member of the VAST majority of smartphone users who do not use a Crapple iPhone ... I am really getting tired of dealing with people who push the "like" button on a text message in iMessage and carelessly assume it works the same way everywhere. Those of us with standards-compliant phones instead of Crapple phones receive an entire copy of the original message, prefixed with "<contact name> liked..." in front of it. 

Interesting...I just tried the "like" and "ha ha" options on a message from my Google voice account to my iPhone and the replies, my google voice app and the Google voice web site, simply displayed:

Liked "<message>"

and

Laughed at "<message>"

Assuming you're running something Android based, I'm curious as to why your Google/Android messaging app isn't displaying it in the same way.



[#] Thu Jul 12 2018 10:42:52 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

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That's the effect I am describing.

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