kestrel.raveling@unify.UUCP (Paul Raveling) (07/03/90)
This is routed to the xpert mailing list as well as to the OpenLook list. xpert/comp.windows.x readers might want to know that this follows from a discussion of the relative merits of Motif and OpenLook. > In article <9158@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Bill Davidson writes: > |> From: unify!kestrel.raveling@uunet.uu.net (Paul Raveling) > > |> It may be worth mentioning vanilla MIT X11 as an alternative. ... > You may *like* it better, but in what way is it technically better? My > personal choice is MOTIF, but I regularly use olwm over twm because of > the consistent button usage. I'd argue that twm at least is technically better than olwm because it provides capabilities that seem to be unavailable with olwm, and some of them are important. If there's a way to get olwm to do some of these and I'm not aware of it, I'd be delighted to hear about it. Some items of this sort are: 0. QUIT GRABBING MY FUNCTION KEYS. 1. ALWAYS raise a window when it's moved or resized 2. Quit adding an internal border to all windows. 3. Disable titlebars on a per-client basis Perhaps those and various others could be phrased in a more general way as: If the default behaviors aren't ideal, provide easy ways to change ANY default behavior. This also means that I have some quarrels with various aspects of the OpenLook Way of Life in general. Something else I've been waiting for is a window manager, or any client for that matter, that could handle an interactive dialog to reconfigure its options. Users, and maybe even developers, shouldn't always have to sort out whether to change .whatnotrc, .Xresources, .Xdefaults, or (gasp) /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/whatever [or Whatever, or WHatever]. ------------------ Paul Raveling Raveling@unify.com
kestrel.raveling@unify.UUCP (Paul Raveling) (07/04/90)
[This is cross-posted to xpert (comp.windows.x) & probably belongs in comp.graphics.] > In article <9158@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Bill Davidson writes: > |> From: unify!kestrel.raveling@uunet.uu.net (Paul Raveling) > > |> Perhaps part of that is because monochrome displays are going > |> the way of dinosaurs on workstations. > > Now you're down to pure opinion. While I like color, for many > applications it just isn't needed, and the high resolution of mono gives > a crisper display. For technical reasons the cost of any given > resolution in color is always higher than the same dot pitch in mono, > and for just text handling mono is fine. Checking this out should be an action item for somone who'd like to do some legitimate human factors research. Part of the problem is that we haven't learned to use color to full advantage yet. I agree that color isn't essential for simple text applications, but I believe that practically all workstations are used for more complex work. Even many simple applications are becoming more graphic. For example, when I stopped into a Sacramento bank to transfer my checking account from L.A., the bank officer used a very colorful PC-based windowish application to do the job of filling in forms. I didn't look closely, but had an impression that it used color to suggest semantics and to guide the user's cognitive focus. Another literally graphic example was an article in the real estate section of the 1st Sunday paper I received. It was written by a realtor who wildly praised their new ability to show digitized color photos of their listings to clients in the office. The author predicted that the online MLS (multiple listing service) would adopt digitized images within a couple years. As for resolution, there's definitely a price for good color resolution but I'm not aware of a workstation color monitor that I'd consider inadequate. Resolution on the monitors I used at ISI was better than that of the PC displays and VT-100'ish terminals that I used before then, and was about the same as most workstation monochrome displays. ------------------ Paul Raveling Raveling@unify.com
grp@unify.UUCP (Greg Pasquariello) (07/04/90)
Paul Raveling writes: > >> In article <9158@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Bill Davidson writes: >> |> From: unify!kestrel.raveling@uunet.uu.net (Paul Raveling) >> >> |> It may be worth mentioning vanilla MIT X11 as an alternative. >... >> You may *like* it better, but in what way is it technically better? My >> personal choice is MOTIF, but I regularly use olwm over twm because of >> the consistent button usage. > > I'd argue that twm at least is technically better than olwm > because it provides capabilities that seem to be unavailable > with olwm, and some of them are important. If there's a way > to get olwm to do some of these and I'm not aware of it, I'd > be delighted to hear about it. > > Some items of this sort are: > > 0. QUIT GRABBING MY FUNCTION KEYS. Any function keys Open Look grabs can be overriden. > 1. ALWAYS raise a window when it's moved or resized I would say NEVER raise a window unless I tell it to. It's awful obnoxious to do something that I did not want. But these our simply differing opinions. > 2. Quit adding an internal border to all windows. There is no internal border added to any windows. > 3. Disable titlebars on a per-client basis Title bars are there so that the user knows what they are working with. This is a benefit to naive users; they know, at a glance, what they are working with. I do agree, however, that this behavior should be configurable. I would venture a guess that this is the most oft-cited "problem" with the window manager. Does the Motif WM allow this? Remember, what we started talking about was the relative merits of Open Look vs Motif. If we want to talk technical excellence, an argument can be made that NeWS is _far_ superior to X. And, Open Look can run in a NeWS environment, as it is only a specification. > > > Perhaps those and various others could be phrased in a more > general way as: > > If the default behaviors aren't ideal, provide easy > ways to change ANY default behavior. This also means > that I have some quarrels with various aspects of > the OpenLook Way of Life in general. > I agree that, in an ideal world, you should be able to change any behaviour you don't like. > Something else I've been waiting for is a window manager, or > any client for that matter, that could handle an interactive > dialog to reconfigure its options. Users, and maybe even > developers, shouldn't always have to sort out whether to change > .whatnotrc, .Xresources, .Xdefaults, or (gasp) > /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/whatever [or Whatever, or WHatever]. Here, here. > > >------------------ >Paul Raveling >Raveling@unify.com > > -Greg Pasquariello grp@unify.com
don@zardoz.coral.COM (Don Dewar) (07/05/90)
If this debate continues to rage on, taking up both electronic and visual (eyestrain) bandwidth, I would suggest we make a separate mailing list. This is a purely subjective argument at this time. Yes, I have my opinion, but my opinion means nothing when one considers that this issue is going to be decided by the interaction of two factors: the market and defacto standards. In a world where software is more and more market driven (especially in the hotly competitive workstation market), Sun will eventually go where the market is. Therefore, whichever Motif or Openlook becomes the defacto standard, that is where Sun and most of the other players will probably go. Therefore, one very important consideration when trying to *guess* which product will win is how much each product attempts to pander to the "standards compliant" market by 1) building on existing standards, 2) filling in the holes by creating reasonable standards where none exists, and 3) appealing to a broad market by not maintaining a legal stranglehold the product, which has in the past scared this market segment. I think this mail distribution deserves arguments based on the technical merits of the products or on the "art" of user interfaces; not on a bunch of pie in the sky numbers or on (somethimes prejudical) subjective opinions. Few of the market *analysis* I have read here on this debate seem credible, and they certainly have not quoted their sources. I have already said more than I wanted to, so in closing, I would beg that the persons continuing this argument get verifiable *facts*, argue based on technical merit or on the human factors side of user interfaces, or start a new mailing list to throw their opinions at each other. +---------+ | Coral | |@@@@@*@**| |@@*@@**@@| Don Dewar |*@@**@@@@| Coral Network Corporation, Marlborough, MA |@***@@@@@| Internet: don@coral.com |@@**@@@@@| Phone: (508) 460-6010 |*********| Fax: (508) 481-6258 |Networks | +---------+
jimf@SABER.COM (07/05/90)
| I didn't look closely, but | had an impression that it used color to suggest semantics | and to guide the user's cognitive focus. This is A Bad Idea. A large portion of the male population is color-blind to some degree. If you use color to convey information this segment will be unable to make proper use of your software. Apple publishes a user interface design guide which touches on this point (along with a lot of others -- if you do UI work, buy that book!), and I've come in contact with the problem several times even in the short time I've been doing user-interfaces. Color can be an additional guide, but don't make it the only one. jim frost saber software jimf@saber.com
stripes@eng.umd.edu (Joshua Osborne) (07/09/90)
In article <9007032022.AA13586@magpie> think!ames!unify.com!grp@eddie.mit.edu writes: [...] >> 0. QUIT GRABBING MY FUNCTION KEYS. > > Any function keys Open Look grabs can be overriden. How? Nobody here will use *any* OL stuff because it messes up the Fkey bindings for twm... Also why do the OL prgrams "steal" the functions keys from *everyplace*, not just their windows? (I can see why OLWM takes them, but why does running mailtool prevent me from using L10 in some other window for someting?) -- stripes@eng.umd.edu "Security for Unix is like Josh_Osborne@Real_World,The Mutitasking for MS-DOS" "The dyslexic porgramer" - Kevin Lockwood "Don't try to change C into some nice, safe, portable programming language with all sharp edges removed, pick another language." - John Limpert