topgun@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Chandra Bajpai) (03/26/90)
>>My personal hopes, for rationality and progress, are for Xerox to lose >>against Apple and Apple to lose against HP/Microsoft. The graphical >>user interface is an inspiring invention, but no one should own it, any >>more than you can own the rights to automatic transmissions or the >>metric system. > > Apple has never claimed the GUI as its own; it has claimed the Mac >interface as its own. The two are not the same. > What is it that consitutes the Mac User Interface vs. say NeXT Step or OSF/Motif? Trash cans? Disk icons? Double clicking and Dragging? All these exist in other User Interfaces in one form or another. Maybe it's the way you perform a particular action that Apple is claiming is the Mac User Interface. Exactly what is Apple claiming? Thinking along....If you could create a new User Interface for Finder what would you change or add? What are the complaints about Finder's interface? Ejecting disks by dragging disks into trash cans are not intutive(sp?)! -Chandra Bajpai topgun@brandeis.cs.edu
gwangung@milton.acs.washington.edu (Roger Tang) (03/26/90)
In article <1990Mar26.142308.6947@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu> topgun@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Chandra Bajpai) writes: >What is it that consitutes the Mac User Interface vs. say NeXT Step or >OSF/Motif? Trash cans? Disk icons? Double clicking and Dragging? I haven't the briefs at hand, but from memory, I seem to recall things like menus at top, pull down menus, scroll bars, etc. None of those are strictly necessary in any GUI. Neither are trash cans, of course, although that tends to be trivial. There are other matters, such as how to manage files, where I can see alternatives to the Mac interface.
ph@cci632.UUCP (Pete Hoch) (03/27/90)
Chandra Bajpai quotes someone: > > Apple has never claimed the GUI as its own; it has claimed the Mac > >interface as its own. The two are not the same. Chandra Bajpai then asks: > What is it that consitutes the Mac User Interface vs. say NeXT Step or > OSF/Motif? Trash cans? Disk icons? Double clicking and Dragging? > All these exist in other User Interfaces in one form or another. Maybe > it's the way you perform a particular action that Apple is claiming is the > Mac User Interface. Exactly what is Apple claiming? As I understand it Apple is claiming its unique representation of the GUI. For example the scroll bars are 16 pixels wide, they have an arrow at each end and a thumb. Sunwindows also have scroll bars but they do not look like or act anything like Apples, thus Apple does not care about Sunwindows. Another example, you can only resize an Apple window from the bottom right corner. In Sunwondows you can resize from any window. Apple: only the front window is active. Sun: any window regardles of overlap can be active. Apple is not saying that is owns puldown menus. However it is laying claim to an interface with only one menu bar at the top of the screen where the first three menus are 'System access', FILE, and EDIT. And in addition the menus have a drop shadow on the bottom and right side, etc. I guess in general Apple is not claiming ownership of Menus, Windows, Icons, or the mouse. It is claiming ownership of its very specific implimentation of those ideas. Now some are probably saying, "But Microsoft Windows don't look like Apple's interface'. In general this is true, however HP's implimentation of the GUI used Windows and looked exactly like a Macintosh. This is what started the whole thing rolling. Pete Hoch