Isn't it interesting how the many-windows paradigm has come and gone? Desktop software for the first ~15 years of personal computing was full screen, single "window" for any given task. And then, for the past fifteen years or so, we've been dealing with the increased complexity of many-windowed interfaces. Seems strange that nobody noticed that some of the changes that windowing systems brought were negative until a whole new generation of developers came along and reinvented the single window model.
I'm not so sure multi-windowing is quite dead when it comes to drawing and CAD programs. From a practical perspective, the paradigm of being able to move your palettes around, and pick which ones are displayed, is rather valuable regardless of how big your display is.
But having to position them manually is just tedium. Let me choose which palettes to display and which side of the window to display them on, and then let the application take care of the rest. If I'm running at fullscreen then I don't want anything covering up the document/image/model. Otherwise, I only want to have to move/resize one window.
I'm curious to what CAD programs you are using that are multi-windowing because the only one I can think of is ADAMS by MSC but that UI is a big pain in the ass.
Shoulda used a picture of all the dollar bills remaining after not buying Photoshop :) GIMP's pretty good for a free project, but using their own logo as the example picture makes it look like it's only good for editing sprites.
That's a clever idea for another reason, too: Photoshop will not allow certain operations on pictures of money, highlighting a disadvantage of closed-source software.
That's why it's going to be optional. I, for one, can't stand multi-window interfaces (after almost a year of using a Mac, I still find parts of the interface annoying).
The multi-window aspect of Macs makes them almost unusable IMHO.
I can't conceive of a particular reason to have some completely unrelated program showing up in the same visual space as the one I'm currently working with.
What about related ones? If I'm designing a page, I might want my image browser in sight so I can choose and then drag and drop images. Or if I'm writing an article and it takes a lot of research, I'll want a web browser to share the screen equally with the word processor.
The multi-window aspects of Macs makes them more usable imo, especially because of the deep support for drag-and-drop interoperation. In the physical world, I mix and match media as suits the task, and the Mac mimics that. I don't fill my desk up with a notepad, then hide it and take out a calculator, then hide it and set up my easel.
In the physical world, I mix and match media as suits the task, and the Mac mimics that. I don't fill my desk up with a notepad, then hide it and take out a calculator, then hide it and set up my easel.
Rather than taking out/hiding away your various tools and implements in your desk, I believe the idiomatic Linux strategy is to have nine desks, each with a single tool on it.
OS X has Spaces for that. You can even bind apps to spaces.
I have the following set up: Firefox and entertainment apps on Space 1, IRC on Space 2, XCode and MacVim on Space 3. I don't bind anything to the remaining 3 spaces. The combination of Spaces and Exposé makes for great window management.
And yes, I love the multi-window aspect of OS X. Document-based applications are not only easier to use, they are easier to write, too.
What you fail to understand about multi-windowed GIMP on the Mac is that it uses Mono which has very poor support for detecting clicks.
So if the main image window is focused and I want to click on a button in the other window that is the toolbar I have to click once on the toolbar window to focus it and then again to click the button.
Now its back to the image window. Click once to focus, click again to start using the tool.
It is a disaster and one of the primary reasons that most of us are glad to have a single window GIMP.
The GIMP certainly is not GTK+. GTK+ is a totally separate library. Installing GTK+ does not magically bring with it the GIMP's code. There are hundreds of GTK+-applications, across loads of platforms, that have nothing to do with the GIMP.
It is correct that the toolkit was originally created for the GIMP, but it's not at all tied to the GIMP now.
The GIMP developers often push issues into GTK+ whenever possible, they treat it as just another library.
It's a good thing that GTK is a semi-independent project -- as obnoxious as the Gnome maintainers are, the Gimp asshats would have strangled it with their usual besieged malcompetence.
You're absolutely right. I meant to say GTK in my original comment, but I was thinking about Mono because of another Linux project that was on my mind. Anyway, I'll leave the mistake in my comment since you've already corrected it for me.
And how is that use-case unsupported on virtually all other operating systems?
One of the nice things (again, IMHO) of the Windows concept (and Linux, and BeOS and <insert any other modern OS> for the most part) is that just because you happen to have a window in focus doesn't mean that the principle OS menus need to completely reconfigure themselves for that one app. The functions of the thing you are working on are supposed to carry around with that object.
Under any other possible metaphor, what the Macintosh operating systems have done is madness.
>In the physical world, I mix and match media as suits the task, and the Mac mimics that. I don't fill my desk up with a notepad, then hide it and take out a calculator, then hide it and set up my easel.
This is the wrong metaphor. The metaphor Apple is using is like separating the pedals, gear shifter and steering wheel from your car, the doorknobs from your house and your office, and all the buttons from your calculator and throwing them into a toolchest that you have to carry around with you everywhere. Whenever you encounter something you need to operate, you open the appropriate drawer in the chest and operate it from there. Need to go get some beer at the convenience store? Open the 3rd drawer and drive your car from inside the drawer. Need to get in your house? Open the doorknob drawer and turn the right one clockwise so your door pops open. Need to use your calculator that you have out? That's the fifth drawer down on the right. Try not to make a mistake while bending down hitting keys, and then bending back up to see if the display on the calc is showing you something you want. Of course it's an Apple toolbox so it's all aqua-ish and shiny with rounded corners and a permanent lens-flair, and it's context sensitive so the right drawer "just opens" at the right time so it all appears to "just work". But it's annoying as all hell.
The interfaces to the device you are intending to operate should be part of the device you are operating.
The Macintosh Operating systems have always operated under the assumption of single app focus reconfiguring the toolbars, with clutter from unfocused apps taking up the visual space. I can't even count on all my fingers and toes the number of times I've closed a window in an Apple operating system, but not the App, and thought I was working with an app that was in the background that just happened to have a very similar toolbar - and got supremely frustrated that I couldn't bring that app in focus or do some operation from within the toolbar for the app I very clearly was looking at (and the only one I could see with windows on the screen. The disassociation of tools (methods) from the thing that you are working on (objects) is not only a poor abstraction, it's a usability nightmare.
Right now for example, I have my browser open in one part of my screen, a word processor in another, and two file browsers on another monitor. Nothing in the design of my OS is preventing me from copying and pasting from one to the other, or even dragging and dropping items or selections from one program to another. But my OS isn't trying to reconfigure itself to support whatever app happens to be in focus at the moment. But if I want to avoid distractions from the other apps, I can full screen any one of those things and it really is full screen, I won't see anything else on that monitor but that app. On Apple Operating systems it just sorta kinda fits it as best it can, but if the aspect ratio is not quite right or something I'll see other apps hanging out over the edges of my window.
Have you used a Mac more than once? Or have you only ever used OpenDoc or something? I don't mean to be insulting, but nothing you describe happens or has happened in any Mac OS:
1. Mac apps don't have toolbars (save the odd cross-platform exception). App windows can have toolbars, but they remain with the window, so it's impossible for you to close a window and still work with its toolbar as you describe. Likewise:
2. "The Macintosh Operating systems have always operated under the assumption of single app focus reconfiguring the toolbar" can't be true, because there aren't any. The only thing that changes from app to app is the menubar, and floating palettes if there are any. They of course, disappear, so:
3. "with clutter from unfocused apps taking up the visual space." can't be true either. When an app's in the background, only its document or other main windows remain -- and you've already conceded it's important that they be there. All floating palettes and other "clutter" disappears (so you certainly can't be confused that it's the active app and try to use its invisible toolbars, either). If the main windows disappeared too, how would you support drag-and-drop etc?
4. "But my OS isn't trying to reconfigure itself to support whatever app happens to be in focus at the moment." ... and neither is Mac OS. There's no reconfiguration going on. The menubar titles change to accord with the active application, and ancillary palettes -- windows that only make sense when their application is active -- disappear. That's all that happens when an app focus changes.
4b. Which makes "and got supremely frustrated that I couldn't bring that app in focus" bizarre. You clicked on an app's window and it didn't come into focus? Why not?
5. "The disassociation of tools (methods) from the thing that you are working on (objects) is not only a poor abstraction, it's a usability nightmare." ... well, except that this is how we've worked every since our ancestors got tools? The hammer doesn't stick to the nail, or the saw to the piece of wood. Tools aren't associated with the things they're working on.
6. ... well, except in computing, where they are associated, necessarily. If you're working on an image, you're in an image editing app, and the appropriate tools need to be available. When you switch to a text document, they need to go away (as they do on the Mac), and document-editing tools need to be available.
7. All of this adds up to make your toolchest metaphor totally nonsensical. In what way and by what behaviours does Apple's metaphor mix up the buttons from your calculator with the pedals from your car? The only way I can make sense of it is to think that because the calculator is still visible on the screen while you're in another app, you're somehow confused about what you're doing. It's as if you want the OS to only allow you to do one thing at a time.
8. Which would be the full-screen thing. Except that breaks the metaphor again. It's a desktop. You're allowed to have more than one thing on it at a time. You don't push everything off your desk and only have one piece of paper allowed on it at any one time, do you? So why should your computer behave the same way? Especially if you've got a 24" or 30" screen. But, even then, you can just "hide others" and hide the dock, and your window can fill the screen with no other nasty apps insulting your field of view.
I'm sorry if we've got here from what you meant to be a throwaway line about the "multi-window aspect" of Macs, but really, unless you're making an argument for having nothing but old-school Windows MDI, it was a daft position to take, unless you've got a huge misconception about how Mac OS window handling works. It's certainly not "almost unusable" because it lets you see other windows -- and you've already conceded it's important to be able to see them, so I'm struggling to get where the "madness" you talk about comes in.
Yep, used 'em quite a bit. Found 'em irritating beyond all rationality and quickly turned them all into Windows or nix boxen. Now I have a bunch of overpriced, underpowered Windows and nix boxes with bad keyboards.
1) Apple's Toolbar is the universal toolbar across the top of the screen. Turn on a Mac built since 1984 and there it is. I think Apple calls it a menubar, but meh, whatever. Just because Apple chooses to call it something different than everybody else doesn't make it different.
2) There are plenty of multi-doc apps where you can close the window, but the app remains "open", toolbar dutifully filling up the top of the screen just asking you to hit command+n or whatever to start a new document. It's as old as time.
3) I conceded no such point. I was claiming that if drag and drop between apps was something I wished to accomplish, I was able to do that just fine in <insert any modern windowed operating system>. But in most windowed systems, you can also maximize/full-screen the app, particularly using an MDI metaphor, to focus your work on just that app when you want and not have your online poker game or movie, or some other similarly designed and looking app showing up in the background driving the user to distraction because it's cluttering up their visual space with irrelevant garbage.
4) Thanks for describing my point exactly. The singular menu bar, the place where all the application functions exist is completely decoupled from the object (the window) that the functions are operating on. If I place two apps side-by-side, I can only see the menubar from one app at a time.
4b) You tell me. The Apple line of operating systems has proven to be so unusable for me due to this reason that to this day I can't explain why it happens nor train myself to avoid it. Call me slow, or whatnot. But when I close a window, I mean to close the app, not have it hang around. This is one of many areas where Apple products don't "just work" as the adherents tirelessly proclaim - at least for me. Call me odd, but I haven't had this problem in any other Windowed OS I've ever used, not BeOS, Amiga OS, Risc OS, any version of Windows, Plan 9, etc. etc. etc.
5) So you walk around with the controls to operate your car decoupled from the vehicle? It must be awesome to drive facing backwards from the backseat. I also keep appropriate tools near where I'm working. If I'm doing woodwork, I go to my woodwork shop and bam there's all my woodworking tools. When I go to paint something, I go to my studio, and boom there's my paintbrushes. You do in fact keep the tools you are using in context with the work you are doing.
I've never had a case where I was needing to bang a nail into something, reached over and accidentally grabbed a paintbrush or gasp a steering wheel. Yet I do that almost every time I have to use an Apple OS product, since 1984.
6) I think we agree on this (see above), but what I'm saying is that the lack of clarity that decoupling the menubar (or toolbar or whatever we'll decide to call it "the thing with the functional buttons on it") from the document/workarea/drawing pad/whatever is maddening un-usability.
7) "It's as if you want the OS to only allow you to do one thing at a time". Pretty much. When I'm typing a comment on HN, I really really really don't need to see my sales figures spreadsheet floating around in the background, or my engineering proposal or my image editing tool, or my IDE, or whatever. I (and most people I know) only have one brain and one set of hands. It's physically impossible to operate more than one app at a time. We all also like to full-screen whatever app we're working on at that moment and not see any remnant of another app poking through the lousy interface.
I also want to be able to use more than one app at a time if I so choose. So I want to see them both side-by side, or one atop ta' other or whatever works for that moment, and I'd like to have the associated toolbars with the app in that part of...
So all of that toolbars+toolchests+doorknobs stuff was nothing more than the old "I don't like the menus at the top, and I get confused when applications don't quit when I close the last open window" trope? Blimey.
Menubar-at-top vs in-window is a well-rehearsed religious bit, and I'm sure everyone else here knows the score. I don't think we'll get anywhere productive hashing it out further. Enough to say that it has advantages I think you overlook (including Fitt's Law), and the Gods of Usability are, like many Gods, on nobody's side but their own. I'm sorry Apple offended you.
(Oh: You haven't been making the mistake since 1984, btw: MultiFinder didn't come out until 1998, and wasn't default until System 7, so there weren't any other open apps. And AmigaOS uses the same menu-at-top system, for apps that run inside Workbench).
I'm glad you brought up Fitt's Law. It only goes to prove that click targets should be close to what you are working on. A decoupled menubar does not achieve this unless what you are working on happens to be at the top of the screen.
Everybody seems to assume that "oh, Apple is the usability expert" that everything they do is some kind of gospel. But they screw up sometimes also. In my case it was a deal breaker, in your case you take it as God's own truth.
I stand corrected regarding dates and Workbench. :)
The edges of the screen are infinitely big targets in one dimension, and the corners in both dimensions -- you can't overshoot them, unlike local context menus.
FTA
"In the end, the main thing that I've noticed in the last few days is that it is much easier for me to concentrate on a single task when I can quickly hide all unrelated applications and show just the one or two that I need right now. I'm finding that this method works better for me than Spaces, and I am a big fan of Spaces."
Wow, THANK YOU. I actually had no idea why multi-window interfaces in graphics programs even existed, but that's because I've been an unlucky single-monitor man forever!
Now I do NOT want the single-window interface, I want another video card and a second monitor.
I have a feeling I stand alone in the Geekiverse on this one.
you want a _recent_ videcard, not an _another_ one. most, if not all, $100 gfx cards have two outputs, and the newest AMD offerings ($300 range) have - you might want to sit down - six.
Except that GIMP's multi-window implementation is as shitty as possible, especially if you use focus-follows-mouse. The palettes all freak out and forget state in a most unusable way as you move the mouse over to them! It doesn't help that they're implemented as normal windows so they constantly get buried, lost, closed, and forgotten.
Besides, you really want to mouse across monitors to use the basic UI?
How about "it looks like a mess" or "it looks like every shareware image editor since the days of Windows 95" or "it looks like you crammed as many controls as you could fit on screen using a cross-platform windowing toolkit"?
I can't say any of that, it's rude - but it's what I'm thinking.
Look at the right hand side - count the scrollbars, the dropdowns, the counters. What's that hideous layer control thing that's like a treeview/gridview with nested scrollbars sized to suggest it should be huge, crammed into a tiny little space? Grim.
Do note that all that UI is crammed into a 978×722 pixel window; I would imagine it works far better on a decently sized 1280x1024 or larger screen. I bet you'd be pretty hard-pressed to get Photoshop or such to work well in that small of a space too...
Yes, its 100px wider, but still, imho Photoshop makes a lot better use of precious screen space. Compare the buttons under layer palettes. GIMP has 32px icons, while Photoshop has over 10px smaller ones. Or the slider, in Photoshop under "Navigator" and in GIMP in the Layers palette. Actually just compare Layers palettes in each. GIMP uses lots of superfluous labels and huge font size compared to Photoshop In my screenshot Photoshop also has 2 more palettes on screen.
Photoshops UI is also quite flexible, allowing to move and resize palettes freely, dock and undock, and group palettes to tab-groups. And layouts can be saved and then selected with just few mouse clicks. This allows it to scale across monitor size and count relatively easily.
edit: Sorry for inflammatory Photoshop vs. GIMP post
Photoshop (at least CS3, anyway) won't even install on a computer with a resolution less than 1024x768. Found that out when I tried to put it on my eee.
Sadly this is perhaps a measure of how desperate us GIMP users are. I'm just happy that GIMP is all going to be in one window. Its amazing that they finally decided to leave the old standard interface.
But relief and anticipation aside I have to agree with you that as far as aesthetics and design it is rather mediocre.
At the very least it is a start. Now that the maintainers are allowing the single-window mode to be created the onward march of open-source progress will keep improving it. It may not approach the elegance that Apple's designers deliver but we can sure as hell beat Adobe.
Edit: Did all of my downvote arrows disappear? I don't want to downvote anyone in particular here but that seems odd.
I actually fought with the linux UI for ages to make it look visually appealing. Invariably I always ended up using MS Window fonts, and Mac-style UI.
If you look closely at the screenshot you'll notice that it'll only take a few minor adjustments to make it actually look appealing:
- Appropriate fonts (rather than those overly rounded ones)
- Slimming down of grotesquely large UI text boxes.
- Slimming down of grotesquely large dropdown controls.
- NOT using rounded corners everywhere.
You'd be amazed how radically the UI can be improved from just these minor changes.
Ironic that they chose this screenshot, given that GIMP is a project mainly concerned with graphics and visuals.
Looks like it uses native widgets and fonts, as it should (GTK stands for GIMP ToolKit after all). If it looks bad, GTK (or its theme) is to blame, not GIMP itself.
BUT I think you are correct, some UI elements, especially in the palettes are too large.
Granted, it won't win beauty pageant, but why do any of us use tools like gimp ? To get stuff done. Multiple windows were annoying (especially in combination with multiple desktops :-)), but other than that gimp qualifies as a good tool.
Finally the day I have been waiting for! I can't stand the multiple windows, especially on the Mac OS X version in which one initial click is required to focus the window and a second to click a button or begin using a tool.
I'm glad people are being so critical. Back when I started using The GIMP (v1.x), when people (including me) said Photoshop (v4) had a superior interface, people rushed to The GIMP's defense. The GIMP has gotten more Photoshop-like since then, and no one's complained, so apparently the defenders were blind apologists. Not everything should be like Photoshop, but I think doing it Photoshop's way would be better than this way.
From the minutes of a GIMP developer conference meeting not too long ago:
The user scenarios would be written down in advance. These scenarios should not be changed afterwards because it would lead to too much discussion. The goal is to cut down all this discussion. The product vision is to be used as a filter. For example: If someone comes with the request that the UI of GIMP should be like Photoshop, we can simply state: We are not trying to be like Photoshop, because we have a different product vision.
I think defining their software in terms of "not being Photoshop" hurts their software. Photoshop is free to add any features which they think will help users edit images, while the Gimp limits itself to the features that Photoshop has not already chosen.
I actually loved the floating windows: that's what window managers are for, right?
However, since transitioning to StumpWM the multi-window approach just doesn't cut it. Now it's a trade-off between logging in with Metacity and doing gimpwork, or keeping StumpWM running and avoiding gimpwork. If Gimp 2.8 has this, then I can start spending more time with that peculiar but beloved graphics suite again.
I take it you don't like this new development? It is perhaps the most requested GIMP feature. Are you saying startups shouldn't listen to user feedback?
No I mean, when the first version if gimp was created to copy photoshop was not a good idea. And actually is not natural at all to split an application into multiple windows. To just do the obvious (single window) was a better alternative even when they started :) but sometimes it's hard to follow your own ideas if you see that the absolute leader (photoshop) is doing something different.
The news also revealed an interesting but previously rather anonymous group of people: multi-window zealots despising the idea of a single-window mode in their beloved multi-window application. I suspect they don't realize that single-window mode is going to be optional...
This looks good. It's worth noting that on the mac at least, even PS can have a windowless UI. It's actually nice when using multiple monitors and a tablet. A single window won't make full use of 2 screens of differing vertical resolutions.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] threadhttp://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Image:Screen-ohmega-tab-gnome...
http://nathanhowell.net/2009/03/08/xmonad-and-the-gimp/
FTFY.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Bank_Counterfeit_Deterr...
I can't conceive of a particular reason to have some completely unrelated program showing up in the same visual space as the one I'm currently working with.
The multi-window aspects of Macs makes them more usable imo, especially because of the deep support for drag-and-drop interoperation. In the physical world, I mix and match media as suits the task, and the Mac mimics that. I don't fill my desk up with a notepad, then hide it and take out a calculator, then hide it and set up my easel.
Rather than taking out/hiding away your various tools and implements in your desk, I believe the idiomatic Linux strategy is to have nine desks, each with a single tool on it.
I have the following set up: Firefox and entertainment apps on Space 1, IRC on Space 2, XCode and MacVim on Space 3. I don't bind anything to the remaining 3 spaces. The combination of Spaces and Exposé makes for great window management.
And yes, I love the multi-window aspect of OS X. Document-based applications are not only easier to use, they are easier to write, too.
So if the main image window is focused and I want to click on a button in the other window that is the toolbar I have to click once on the toolbar window to focus it and then again to click the button.
Now its back to the image window. Click once to focus, click again to start using the tool.
It is a disaster and one of the primary reasons that most of us are glad to have a single window GIMP.
GTK == "Gimp Toolkit"
It is correct that the toolkit was originally created for the GIMP, but it's not at all tied to the GIMP now.
The GIMP developers often push issues into GTK+ whenever possible, they treat it as just another library.
It's a good thing that GTK is a semi-independent project -- as obnoxious as the Gnome maintainers are, the Gimp asshats would have strangled it with their usual besieged malcompetence.
One of the nice things (again, IMHO) of the Windows concept (and Linux, and BeOS and <insert any other modern OS> for the most part) is that just because you happen to have a window in focus doesn't mean that the principle OS menus need to completely reconfigure themselves for that one app. The functions of the thing you are working on are supposed to carry around with that object.
Under any other possible metaphor, what the Macintosh operating systems have done is madness.
>In the physical world, I mix and match media as suits the task, and the Mac mimics that. I don't fill my desk up with a notepad, then hide it and take out a calculator, then hide it and set up my easel.
This is the wrong metaphor. The metaphor Apple is using is like separating the pedals, gear shifter and steering wheel from your car, the doorknobs from your house and your office, and all the buttons from your calculator and throwing them into a toolchest that you have to carry around with you everywhere. Whenever you encounter something you need to operate, you open the appropriate drawer in the chest and operate it from there. Need to go get some beer at the convenience store? Open the 3rd drawer and drive your car from inside the drawer. Need to get in your house? Open the doorknob drawer and turn the right one clockwise so your door pops open. Need to use your calculator that you have out? That's the fifth drawer down on the right. Try not to make a mistake while bending down hitting keys, and then bending back up to see if the display on the calc is showing you something you want. Of course it's an Apple toolbox so it's all aqua-ish and shiny with rounded corners and a permanent lens-flair, and it's context sensitive so the right drawer "just opens" at the right time so it all appears to "just work". But it's annoying as all hell.
The interfaces to the device you are intending to operate should be part of the device you are operating.
The Macintosh Operating systems have always operated under the assumption of single app focus reconfiguring the toolbars, with clutter from unfocused apps taking up the visual space. I can't even count on all my fingers and toes the number of times I've closed a window in an Apple operating system, but not the App, and thought I was working with an app that was in the background that just happened to have a very similar toolbar - and got supremely frustrated that I couldn't bring that app in focus or do some operation from within the toolbar for the app I very clearly was looking at (and the only one I could see with windows on the screen. The disassociation of tools (methods) from the thing that you are working on (objects) is not only a poor abstraction, it's a usability nightmare.
Right now for example, I have my browser open in one part of my screen, a word processor in another, and two file browsers on another monitor. Nothing in the design of my OS is preventing me from copying and pasting from one to the other, or even dragging and dropping items or selections from one program to another. But my OS isn't trying to reconfigure itself to support whatever app happens to be in focus at the moment. But if I want to avoid distractions from the other apps, I can full screen any one of those things and it really is full screen, I won't see anything else on that monitor but that app. On Apple Operating systems it just sorta kinda fits it as best it can, but if the aspect ratio is not quite right or something I'll see other apps hanging out over the edges of my window.
1. Mac apps don't have toolbars (save the odd cross-platform exception). App windows can have toolbars, but they remain with the window, so it's impossible for you to close a window and still work with its toolbar as you describe. Likewise:
2. "The Macintosh Operating systems have always operated under the assumption of single app focus reconfiguring the toolbar" can't be true, because there aren't any. The only thing that changes from app to app is the menubar, and floating palettes if there are any. They of course, disappear, so:
3. "with clutter from unfocused apps taking up the visual space." can't be true either. When an app's in the background, only its document or other main windows remain -- and you've already conceded it's important that they be there. All floating palettes and other "clutter" disappears (so you certainly can't be confused that it's the active app and try to use its invisible toolbars, either). If the main windows disappeared too, how would you support drag-and-drop etc?
4. "But my OS isn't trying to reconfigure itself to support whatever app happens to be in focus at the moment." ... and neither is Mac OS. There's no reconfiguration going on. The menubar titles change to accord with the active application, and ancillary palettes -- windows that only make sense when their application is active -- disappear. That's all that happens when an app focus changes.
4b. Which makes "and got supremely frustrated that I couldn't bring that app in focus" bizarre. You clicked on an app's window and it didn't come into focus? Why not?
5. "The disassociation of tools (methods) from the thing that you are working on (objects) is not only a poor abstraction, it's a usability nightmare." ... well, except that this is how we've worked every since our ancestors got tools? The hammer doesn't stick to the nail, or the saw to the piece of wood. Tools aren't associated with the things they're working on.
6. ... well, except in computing, where they are associated, necessarily. If you're working on an image, you're in an image editing app, and the appropriate tools need to be available. When you switch to a text document, they need to go away (as they do on the Mac), and document-editing tools need to be available.
7. All of this adds up to make your toolchest metaphor totally nonsensical. In what way and by what behaviours does Apple's metaphor mix up the buttons from your calculator with the pedals from your car? The only way I can make sense of it is to think that because the calculator is still visible on the screen while you're in another app, you're somehow confused about what you're doing. It's as if you want the OS to only allow you to do one thing at a time.
8. Which would be the full-screen thing. Except that breaks the metaphor again. It's a desktop. You're allowed to have more than one thing on it at a time. You don't push everything off your desk and only have one piece of paper allowed on it at any one time, do you? So why should your computer behave the same way? Especially if you've got a 24" or 30" screen. But, even then, you can just "hide others" and hide the dock, and your window can fill the screen with no other nasty apps insulting your field of view.
I'm sorry if we've got here from what you meant to be a throwaway line about the "multi-window aspect" of Macs, but really, unless you're making an argument for having nothing but old-school Windows MDI, it was a daft position to take, unless you've got a huge misconception about how Mac OS window handling works. It's certainly not "almost unusable" because it lets you see other windows -- and you've already conceded it's important to be able to see them, so I'm struggling to get where the "madness" you talk about comes in.
1) Apple's Toolbar is the universal toolbar across the top of the screen. Turn on a Mac built since 1984 and there it is. I think Apple calls it a menubar, but meh, whatever. Just because Apple chooses to call it something different than everybody else doesn't make it different.
2) There are plenty of multi-doc apps where you can close the window, but the app remains "open", toolbar dutifully filling up the top of the screen just asking you to hit command+n or whatever to start a new document. It's as old as time.
3) I conceded no such point. I was claiming that if drag and drop between apps was something I wished to accomplish, I was able to do that just fine in <insert any modern windowed operating system>. But in most windowed systems, you can also maximize/full-screen the app, particularly using an MDI metaphor, to focus your work on just that app when you want and not have your online poker game or movie, or some other similarly designed and looking app showing up in the background driving the user to distraction because it's cluttering up their visual space with irrelevant garbage.
4) Thanks for describing my point exactly. The singular menu bar, the place where all the application functions exist is completely decoupled from the object (the window) that the functions are operating on. If I place two apps side-by-side, I can only see the menubar from one app at a time.
4b) You tell me. The Apple line of operating systems has proven to be so unusable for me due to this reason that to this day I can't explain why it happens nor train myself to avoid it. Call me slow, or whatnot. But when I close a window, I mean to close the app, not have it hang around. This is one of many areas where Apple products don't "just work" as the adherents tirelessly proclaim - at least for me. Call me odd, but I haven't had this problem in any other Windowed OS I've ever used, not BeOS, Amiga OS, Risc OS, any version of Windows, Plan 9, etc. etc. etc.
5) So you walk around with the controls to operate your car decoupled from the vehicle? It must be awesome to drive facing backwards from the backseat. I also keep appropriate tools near where I'm working. If I'm doing woodwork, I go to my woodwork shop and bam there's all my woodworking tools. When I go to paint something, I go to my studio, and boom there's my paintbrushes. You do in fact keep the tools you are using in context with the work you are doing.
I've never had a case where I was needing to bang a nail into something, reached over and accidentally grabbed a paintbrush or gasp a steering wheel. Yet I do that almost every time I have to use an Apple OS product, since 1984.
6) I think we agree on this (see above), but what I'm saying is that the lack of clarity that decoupling the menubar (or toolbar or whatever we'll decide to call it "the thing with the functional buttons on it") from the document/workarea/drawing pad/whatever is maddening un-usability.
7) "It's as if you want the OS to only allow you to do one thing at a time". Pretty much. When I'm typing a comment on HN, I really really really don't need to see my sales figures spreadsheet floating around in the background, or my engineering proposal or my image editing tool, or my IDE, or whatever. I (and most people I know) only have one brain and one set of hands. It's physically impossible to operate more than one app at a time. We all also like to full-screen whatever app we're working on at that moment and not see any remnant of another app poking through the lousy interface.
I also want to be able to use more than one app at a time if I so choose. So I want to see them both side-by side, or one atop ta' other or whatever works for that moment, and I'd like to have the associated toolbars with the app in that part of...
Menubar-at-top vs in-window is a well-rehearsed religious bit, and I'm sure everyone else here knows the score. I don't think we'll get anywhere productive hashing it out further. Enough to say that it has advantages I think you overlook (including Fitt's Law), and the Gods of Usability are, like many Gods, on nobody's side but their own. I'm sorry Apple offended you.
(Oh: You haven't been making the mistake since 1984, btw: MultiFinder didn't come out until 1998, and wasn't default until System 7, so there weren't any other open apps. And AmigaOS uses the same menu-at-top system, for apps that run inside Workbench).
Everybody seems to assume that "oh, Apple is the usability expert" that everything they do is some kind of gospel. But they screw up sometimes also. In my case it was a deal breaker, in your case you take it as God's own truth.
I stand corrected regarding dates and Workbench. :)
The edges of the screen are infinitely big targets in one dimension, and the corners in both dimensions -- you can't overshoot them, unlike local context menus.
FTA "In the end, the main thing that I've noticed in the last few days is that it is much easier for me to concentrate on a single task when I can quickly hide all unrelated applications and show just the one or two that I need right now. I'm finding that this method works better for me than Spaces, and I am a big fan of Spaces."
Now I do NOT want the single-window interface, I want another video card and a second monitor.
I have a feeling I stand alone in the Geekiverse on this one.
Besides, you really want to mouse across monitors to use the basic UI?
It looks fine... but maybe the linux dudes have standards lowered a bit?
The url is:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FJH0hYZmVtc/SsuTeVas_WI/AAAAAAAADl...
How about "it looks REASONABLY GOOD" or "it looks ABOUT LIKE YOU MIGHT EXPECT"?
I can't say any of that, it's rude - but it's what I'm thinking.
Look at the right hand side - count the scrollbars, the dropdowns, the counters. What's that hideous layer control thing that's like a treeview/gridview with nested scrollbars sized to suggest it should be huge, crammed into a tiny little space? Grim.
Yes, its 100px wider, but still, imho Photoshop makes a lot better use of precious screen space. Compare the buttons under layer palettes. GIMP has 32px icons, while Photoshop has over 10px smaller ones. Or the slider, in Photoshop under "Navigator" and in GIMP in the Layers palette. Actually just compare Layers palettes in each. GIMP uses lots of superfluous labels and huge font size compared to Photoshop In my screenshot Photoshop also has 2 more palettes on screen.
Photoshops UI is also quite flexible, allowing to move and resize palettes freely, dock and undock, and group palettes to tab-groups. And layouts can be saved and then selected with just few mouse clicks. This allows it to scale across monitor size and count relatively easily.
edit: Sorry for inflammatory Photoshop vs. GIMP post
But relief and anticipation aside I have to agree with you that as far as aesthetics and design it is rather mediocre.
Edit: Did all of my downvote arrows disappear? I don't want to downvote anyone in particular here but that seems odd.
I actually fought with the linux UI for ages to make it look visually appealing. Invariably I always ended up using MS Window fonts, and Mac-style UI.
If you look closely at the screenshot you'll notice that it'll only take a few minor adjustments to make it actually look appealing: - Appropriate fonts (rather than those overly rounded ones) - Slimming down of grotesquely large UI text boxes. - Slimming down of grotesquely large dropdown controls. - NOT using rounded corners everywhere.
You'd be amazed how radically the UI can be improved from just these minor changes.
Ironic that they chose this screenshot, given that GIMP is a project mainly concerned with graphics and visuals.
BUT I think you are correct, some UI elements, especially in the palettes are too large.
But I like the tabs for images though - that's a big plus.
http://darwingimp.sourceforge.net/guides/install_leopard/
(scroll to the bottom)
And Ctrl is used instead of Cmd.
It's a weird app for us on Mac.
It's gotten a long way since, and yes it does allow you to work in a single window (MDI) mode - but only in Windows.
http://www.gimpshop.com/
The user scenarios would be written down in advance. These scenarios should not be changed afterwards because it would lead to too much discussion. The goal is to cut down all this discussion. The product vision is to be used as a filter. For example: If someone comes with the request that the UI of GIMP should be like Photoshop, we can simply state: We are not trying to be like Photoshop, because we have a different product vision.
http://developer.gimp.org/gimpcon/2006/index.html
I think defining their software in terms of "not being Photoshop" hurts their software. Photoshop is free to add any features which they think will help users edit images, while the Gimp limits itself to the features that Photoshop has not already chosen.
However, since transitioning to StumpWM the multi-window approach just doesn't cut it. Now it's a trade-off between logging in with Metacity and doing gimpwork, or keeping StumpWM running and avoiding gimpwork. If Gimp 2.8 has this, then I can start spending more time with that peculiar but beloved graphics suite again.
The news also revealed an interesting but previously rather anonymous group of people: multi-window zealots despising the idea of a single-window mode in their beloved multi-window application. I suspect they don't realize that single-window mode is going to be optional...
thanks folks, I'll be here all week!