THEM's Profile

[ Chris Howard: Doesn’t that also apply to key-combinations? They after all are buttons. ] No. A key combo can still be accessed by the main menu. I have seen multiple programs have features solely available through the context menu and that is bad design and a user interface blunder.

[ Beeblebrox: I thought of another little annoyance in OSX, which is that clicking the red X doesn’t always close the app. Sometimes it only closes the window, depending on the app. ] Some programs are Window centric, like utilities that have all of their functions in a window, versus Document centric, meaning that you directly manipulate documents. If your program has no function when the main window is closed you should quit it, if however it performs background tasks, like checking email or downloading rss subscriptions, or you can create new docuemnts, why should it quit when you close the window? Imagine having to create a new document in Text Edit then closing the one you were working on. This seems superior to the Windows way where you either have the MDI approach of a parent window housing the many child windows or a launcher toolbar that opens up various default state documents in the programs, like the Office toolbar. Open up various utilties on your OS X machine and see how they react when closing their window. Now compare that to document centric applications.

Beeblebrox. You should try OS X Server for more powerful sharing control instead of the client OS that's simple, easy and secure enough out of the box. It's the different philosophies of the deisgners. all the power you could ever want with the hope you have the knowledge to do it right versus limiting the power in such a way that you can do it relatively safely and quickly. As for the suggestions in this article, I agree with none of them. 1) Why change a better solution? 2) Up to Application developers. Since the most common Apple applications, iTunes and iPhoto, are not truely document oriented applications (quick explanation you manipulate a database or representation of the file and not the file itself) a save toolbar button means nothing. The only program I use that takes a document centric approach, ecto, does have a "Save" button in the toolbar. Take that to mean whatever it does for you. 3) An Apple supplied multi-button mouse would be nice, but a OS that doesn't explicitly depend on that function is nicer. I'm peeved when I see functions in programs that are only accesible with the context menu. 4) The OS should never try to outsmart the user. Hiding files is just confusing and not worth it. 5) Sorting Folders apart from Files is just odd and something I don't get. 6) I don't understand this "context sensitive help" thing. Mouse overs or something else?