kk@shasta.tivoli.COM (Kerry Kimbrough) (03/01/91)
> But these same 3-D effects help the computer > novice to relate to the "real world" and get their "real world" > tasks done promptly. Agreed, but isn't it ironic when this heightened sense of reality appears only on the margin? The widgetry provided by Motif and OL is merely the boilerplate, the background to the real user task at hand. Doesn't it seem that a UI in which the boilerplate leaps vividly out of the screen, while the innards of the main window remain recessed in Flatland has got it exactly 180 deg backwards? This is why competition on 3D buttons seem silly and perhaps even counter-productive to the emergence of good UI's. True, Motif does not mandate Main Window Flats, but this is exactly what you see, because the support for pervasive 3D is limited and hard. Since it was designed to be an effective backdrop, the 2D OL style may actually encourage better UI's, if only by not tempting designers into gaudy frames.