On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:40:36 -0400, Christopher Wright wrote:

> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:op.usux6bskeav7ka@steves.networkengines.com...
>>> I was never a huge fan of application themes.  I don't mind a theme for the whole system (as long as it's simple), but I don't want iTunes to look different just because it can.
>>>
>>>
>> That's one of my biggest pet peeves about modern software. I can't really do the subject justice without delving into a giant pile of expletives. But worse still is when they decide to go and piss all over not just standard looks, but also standard behaviors. Like how the Win build of iTunes will still ignore/"eat" any click that brings it to the foreground. If I wanted that behavior I'd be running a Mac.
>> 
>> The absolute worst of all though is when an app (*cough* skype *cough*) decides that "close" and "the 'close' button" should mean "don't close anything at all, but minimize to tray instead". That should be a firing squad offense ;)
> 
> I'd be killing my IM client constantly if not for that feature. I pretty much expect it of any application that's meant to be running for a long time and only rarely needing user interaction (such as a bittorrent client).

I think he was referring to not having an exit. That is File->Exit is also minimize to tray which is not the case in most such apps.

Hello Christopher,

> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>  
>> The absolute worst of all though is when an app (*cough* skype
>> *cough*) decides that "close" and "the 'close' button" should mean
>> "don't close anything at all, but minimize to tray instead". That
>> should be a firing squad offense ;)
>> 
> I'd be killing my IM client constantly if not for that feature. I
> pretty much expect it of any application that's meant to be running
> for a long time and only rarely needing user interaction (such as a
> bittorrent client).
> 

yah, for some programs you rarely want to close the program but often want to close the UI.

BCS wrote:
> Hello Christopher,
> 
>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> 
>>> The absolute worst of all though is when an app (*cough* skype *cough*) decides that "close" and "the 'close' button" should mean "don't close anything at all, but minimize to tray instead". That should be a firing squad offense ;)
>>>
>> I'd be killing my IM client constantly if not for that feature. I pretty much expect it of any application that's meant to be running for a long time and only rarely needing user interaction (such as a bittorrent client).
>>
> 
> yah, for some programs you rarely want to close the program but often want to close the UI.

This is one place where I think Mac OS X gets it right.  It's a massive pain to close the last document open in OpenOffice.org before opening a new one, only to realise that now you have to sit through the loading screen again.

  -- Daniel

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:32:13 -0400, Georg Wrede <georg.wrede@iki.fi> wrote:
>> I mean, who's such a nutcase that he forgets halfway in the dragging, what it is he's dragging?
> 
> It might be useful if you accidentally start dragging the wrong thing, and then realize because you are dragging the wrong picture/text/etc.
> 
> But my point was really: you complained that you couldn't see the target because the picture is covering it.  My experience is that I can clearly see the target because the picture is translucent (I can see the target "underneath" the picture).


My complaint was about doing stuff just because you can. The dragging was just the first gross example that crossed my mind.

(I'm on a slow graphics card. Besides, it hasn't bothered me enough to start investigating. Heck, for all I know, I could configure it away.)

Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 2:32 PM, Georg Wrede <georg.wrede@iki.fi> wrote:
> 
>>>> (OT: an excellent example of this It's Done Because We Noticed We Could
>>>> stuff is in Firefox. When a picture is a link to another page, and you want
>>>> to drag that to the tab area, the entire picture is dragged with the mouse.
>>>> Now, how the hell am I supposed to hit the small tab area when the large
>>>> picture covers half of my Firefox??
>> Sure it looks good, and the computer owner can brag to the guy in the next
>> cubicle, etc. But there should be some obvious or useful *purpose* for
>> dragging entire pictures where a mouse pointer would be clearer, cleaner,
>> easier for the user, and use less computer cycles.
>>
>> I mean, who's such a nutcase that he forgets halfway in the dragging, what
>> it is he's dragging?
> 
> Middle-click.

Yeah.

But I still don't see the glamouros advantages in dragging whole pictures.

And I often drag stuff to existing tabs. A good example is when browsing http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090424.html where I usually end up with a dozen tabs in no time.

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:32:13 -0400, Georg Wrede <georg.wrede@iki.fi> wrote:
>> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>> On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:09:20 -0400, Georg Wrede <georg.wrede@iki.fi> 
>>>> So now I have to learn to remember to grab bigger pictures near some edge. And I really can't see *any* valid benefit for having to drag the picture. I'd rather have it the old way, where the mouse pointer simply changes shape, so you know you're dragging. Damn, damn...)
>>>  On my system, dragging the image drags a translucent copy of the image, so I can still see where my mouse pointer is aimed.  Maybe you don't have enough colors enabled on your screen?
>>
>> Sure it looks good, and the computer owner can brag to the guy in the next cubicle, etc. But there should be some obvious or useful *purpose* for dragging entire pictures where a mouse pointer would be clearer, cleaner, easier for the user, and use less computer cycles.
>>
>> I mean, who's such a nutcase that he forgets halfway in the dragging, what it is he's dragging?
> 
> One thing that does annoy me is if you are doing this over a slow RDP link, the eye candy isn't worth it.
> 
> I was never a huge fan of application themes.  I don't mind a theme for the whole system (as long as it's simple), but I don't want iTunes to look different just because it can.  I think it has been discussed before that most video editors have the slickest GUI, with real-looking knobs and "led's", but the video editing part of it is buggy as hell.

You're the first one to comment on the actual issue!!! :-)

Those video editors, iTunes and such look like they're programmed by 12-year olds. Somewhere there should be an adult saying what not to do!

I bet the guy who did this never expected that whole-picture dragging actually uses more electricity in your computer. When every Firefox user (and the others "who have to implement this too, so as not to look inferior!") in the whole world drags whole pictures, the combined increase in world electric usage rises well above his day-job salary.

Greenpeace ought to shoot him.

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:op.usux6bskeav7ka@steves.networkengines.com...
>> I was never a huge fan of application themes.  I don't mind a theme for the whole system (as long as it's simple), but I don't want iTunes to look different just because it can.
> 
> That's one of my biggest pet peeves about modern software. I can't really do the subject justice without delving into a giant pile of expletives. 

It took me some serious browsing before I found a non-obtrusive skin for gmplayer. And I hated to have to do that. It should have been the default.

> But worse still is when they decide to go and piss all over not just standard looks, but also standard behaviors. Like how the Win build of iTunes will still ignore/"eat" any click that brings it to the foreground. If I wanted that behavior I'd be running a Mac.

That's a good thing with many *nix GUIs. You can have several overlapping windows, and even do stuff in the non-top ones. But they really should respect the target GUIs way of doing things, when porting.

> The absolute worst of all though is when an app (*cough* skype *cough*) decides that "close" and "the 'close' button" should mean "don't close anything at all, but minimize to tray instead". That should be a firing squad offense ;) Joking aside though, any of these are guaranteed ways to make me lose any and all respect for a piece of software and its developers, especially if they're arrogant enough to provide no way to turn such things off.

Yeah, the biggest motivation (next to being graphical per se) for GUIs was uniform app behavior. That way you only would need to learn the common basics, and then, ostensibly, you could use any new app right off the bat. (In the bad old days, you really had to learn to use every app, one at a time.)

"Georg Wrede" <georg.wrede@iki.fi> wrote in message news:gsrrfn$kv3$1@digitalmars.com...
>
> Those video editors, iTunes and such look like they're programmed by 12-year olds. Somewhere there should be an adult saying what not to do!
>

Well put.

> I bet the guy who did this never expected that whole-picture dragging actually uses more electricity in your computer. When every Firefox user (and the others "who have to implement this too, so as not to look inferior!") in the whole world drags whole pictures, the combined increase in world electric usage rises well above his day-job salary.
>
> Greenpeace ought to shoot him.

Funny, earlier today I was just thinking very much the same thing about a video I saw a few weeks ago of Palm's WebOS (Or it might have been some clone of WebOS). Fancy moving curves and scaling icons that serve absolutely no purpose besides 1. "flash for the sake of flash" (I *hate* that!) and 2. drain the battery. Which is really sad, I used to have so much respect for Palm...But then they killed graffiti, and then replaced their PDAs with cell phones (and we never did get PDAs with hard drives, which is ridiculous, even my portable music player has a damn hard drive, which of course is one device I wouldn't even need if my PDA *had a hdd!!*), and now this WebOS garbage, sheesh...And speaking of PDAs, now Nintendo's been changing their DS from a reasonable gaming device into the world's shittiest PDA...Man, the world of software and consumer electronics really depresses me these days...

"BCS" <none@anon.com> wrote in message news:a6268ff50558cb92691721562e@news.digitalmars.com...
> Hello Christopher,
>
>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>
>>> The absolute worst of all though is when an app (*cough* skype *cough*) decides that "close" and "the 'close' button" should mean "don't close anything at all, but minimize to tray instead". That should be a firing squad offense ;)
>>>
>> I'd be killing my IM client constantly if not for that feature. I pretty much expect it of any application that's meant to be running for a long time and only rarely needing user interaction (such as a bittorrent client).
>>
>
> yah, for some programs you rarely want to close the program but often want to close the UI.
>

That's called "Minimize".

"Georg Wrede" <georg.wrede@iki.fi> wrote in message news:gsrqbj$iu1$1@digitalmars.com...
> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:32:13 -0400, Georg Wrede <georg.wrede@iki.fi> wrote:
>>> I mean, who's such a nutcase that he forgets halfway in the dragging, what it is he's dragging?
>>
>> It might be useful if you accidentally start dragging the wrong thing, and then realize because you are dragging the wrong picture/text/etc.
>>
>> But my point was really: you complained that you couldn't see the target because the picture is covering it.  My experience is that I can clearly see the target because the picture is translucent (I can see the target "underneath" the picture).
>
>
> My complaint was about doing stuff just because you can. The dragging was just the first gross example that crossed my mind.
>
> (I'm on a slow graphics card. Besides, it hasn't bothered me enough to start investigating. Heck, for all I know, I could configure it away.)

When I try to drag a group of files in Windows Explorer it makes them translucent instead of opaque. But I *still* find it unforgivably difficult to see underneath to where I'm dropping them. (Although maybe I can turn that off...)