having a 'universal' file menu can make it easier for general users, productive wise yes i agree with you it could be a bit harder - but that is why shortcuts were invented (which you find hard to use
). lose-lose situation for you
Uh, I use shortcuts all the time and very rarely dip into menus. And a menu attached to the programme being used, for those rarely accessed commands or that have no shortcuts [many items in fact], is much easier to use than a menu several monitors away.
i have come across many many users who dont like using the 'full' window option. i prefer not having to use the full window because i can Tile windows (manually unlike in Windows haha, ironic) or have direct access to my desktop to open a folder or what have you.
And you claim to know Windows!! Tiling is
much, much easier in windows and certainly doable manually and Windows in Win can be resized from all sides/corners not just bottom left. Not to mention many programmes did auto tiling of files within programme for you if you wanted.
Lots of people tile/overlap programmes, rather than use them fullscreen as they find Alt/Cmd+Tab or Epose too hard to do/remember/learn. I'm serious about that.
you clearly havent optimised your production methods then
the window that is in focus is always more grey coloured, the "traffic lights" are coloured etcetc. i never find it hard to see what i have selected. but thats just me.
Take a look at this screenshot
The only indication DW is the active programme on entire desktop is the little bit of subtle text at top left saying Dreamweaver, it is is a bit of text that is a lot less than 1% of my desktop in size. That's one monitor of two on my older and much smaller desktop. Plus with transparent programmes,it is easy to click on the programme underneath and why Adobe are changing away from that annoying paradigm to lessen confusion. The image in screenshot is in Photoshop CS3 and the programme behind that is Opera and no DW to be seen on either monitor bar the little bit of text. No traffic lights or slightly different shades of grey to help at all. Oh and Final Cut doesn't even do the traffic lights, as it is all shades of grey.
as much as i love to agree with you (using that massive setup would be awsome), windows isnt very good at managing multiple windows either! (without the use of 3rd party software).
Actually it's not bad, better than OSX But extra software for Windows does exist and is very good, there is none for OSX that can do what is available for Windows. Ignoring superior programmes that only one platform has is a great way to pretend one is better when it isn't. And if you use nVidia graphics cards then you can use their very good and customisable multi-monitor software
the start menu is only on one window, if i want to see what window is selected i have to move my eyes to the start bar to see what one is 'indented', if i want to change windows without using Alt-Tab i have to go back to that window. so in this situation i think it is somewhat a tie.
Uh seeing as the programme chrome in Windows change depending if programme is to front, far more than in OSX, how can you possibly argue as if it doesn't. The task bar [not the start bar] can be on multiple monitors and you can have the programmes on each monitor be on each task bar's monitor if you want IIRC, unlike the dock/menu which is fixed to one screen only.
The other major difference is I don't really need to know as I just move mouse onto programme and it becomes live when clicked, if it isn't already. With OSX and it's separate menu and programme, it's too easy to click through onto a completely different programme, Particularly easy to do when a full desktop programme isn't quite full desktop due to the fixed menu with files or panel hidden like in screenshot above
does that really make it more productive?? it wastes screen space (unless you use expose alot to return to the desktop), what is wrong with spotlight?
I was was talking about doing so in Windows. And yes is is more productive, doesn't waste screen space either and why Apple made a feature out of it and called it the dock. Not saying they copied me, but I did do it before them.
oh i know Windows, i know it very well.
Yet you were completely inaccurate about a basic thing such as tiling in Windows and refered to the task bar as the start bar! There is a start menu, but that's a different thing again.
i mightnt know 3rd party apps such as CS4 and all that, but general Windows i know very well and can navigate/utilise the OS very well. i have also just finished a semester of UI study at uni, so im familiar with detecting badly placed resources etc when i see them
But you think Finder is OK, which undermines that statement entirely. If I was to teach using examples of poor and clumsy design, Finder would be the main demo.
apple tends to introduce a new 'feature' in one OS update, then work on it more in another. so 10.5 introduced a few new features (Quicklook etc), SL will improve them a bit. 10.7 will see a new Finder. can u wait that long?
Sticking plasters on a decaying corpse will not bring the dead back to life! It's fundamentally broken in so many ways it needs burying, not exhuming. It's just that people are so used to it's awfulness, it seems normal.
i had a good hard think about it, and apart from the copying issue you brought up before i cannot think of any other 'oddities' that i take when using the Finder...
You simply become used to it's oddities and unconsciously do little workarounds or not realise there are much easier ways.
when you are using a program for its features you hardly notice the visual-ness of it, you get used to it
.
My point exactly, you get used to it and also blind to its faults
i see nothing wrong with it, users are not forced to stay!
But you are in as much as once you are in their software, it is very hard to extricate yourself to use different software/hardware or to use a better music manager than the execrable iTunes with your iPod as if anyone makes their music manage work with an iPod, Apple change the code to stop you having that choice. They did just that a few weeks ago in fact.
and if they want to use Windows, you can use Bootcamp.. if you want to use another photo managing program, go for it!
But as iPhoto/Aperture traps all your developments inside the database, you have to render everything out - which could be extremely impractical/time consuming and hard drive filling. And Bootcamp is no use if you've been using a Mac only programme. Besides Bootcamp seems slightly hamstrung, probably to make the Win experience a bit clumsy compared to OSX.
i feel the same way
But as you think Finder is OK, I would certainly win the demo of which methods are esier. Finder is thought of by many Apple fans as the weakest part of OSX and not just by me.
its a ridiculously hard program to use!!
PS is actually very easy to learn. I can and have taught people the basics in an hour or two. Learning to make proper use of the near infinite choices takes an awfull lot longer, but that is nothing to do with the UI, more the complexity of the task of image processing itself.
from my angle, being a pretty educated computer person.. i find the concepts and methodologies of PS very confusing.. even to accomplish simple tasks.
As someone with next to no computer experience when I first used PS, I picked it up quite easily, by playing with it on my own. But I am a professional photographer and was very accomplished in the darkroom. So the image stuff was easy, I just had to find the buttons to do things.
seeing as FC is not really made for making slide shows (thats more a job for iPhoto (for still slideshows) or iMovie (for movie slideshows)), so i dont see that as a valid point.
You missed the point entirely, as the fact it was used for making a slideshow was not the relevant issue. It just happened to illustrate that a simple and basic task in FC was quite difficult as as the still images were part of a longer video piece, iPhoto would have been a very poor choice of tool. It happens one of the new features in FC7 is to make that particular task much easier. Not sure why it took them 6 goes to do it though.
but i do find FCE/DVDSP very easy to use, and the steps required to complete tasks just make sense, the company that originally made it (apple or not) were very good at it
It wasn't Apple that designed FC which is the programme I was talking, about not FC Express, which is meant to be the simple version of FC and FC was being used by a very experienced and very good editor.
thats from your point of view, much like my view of PS. if aperature and FC are so crap, why do a large majority of professional users use them??
Actually Aperture is not very popular amongst pros or anyone else as Lightroom out sells it considerably, even on the Mac.
As for FCs popularity, it's waaaaay better than Avid which was the pros choice previously and was priced much, much, much cheaper. Exactly like how InDesign stole a large part of Quark's market share. Nearly all the Pros used Quark previously as there was no competition on the Mac, not because Quark was any good, it wasn't, it was as awful as Finder in reality. But decent competition made it a lot better in recent years. Finder doesn't have competition so can stay crap.
yes but again i am here saying the same thing, if the simplistic programs such as iPhoto/iMovie etc become too 'crippled' you can then move on to the more professional apps that are created for that purpose (being more advanced).
But as Apple design the software to keep you in the family, that's actually quite difficult if you start with say iPhoto. Plus just because you have more photos, doesn't mean you want a more capable editor, you want the organisation side to be easier, which is what Tog was talking about, not being able to do multi-layered images. He was saying what works fine for a small number of files doesn't for a much larger number of files. So more 'professional' software does not come into it.
so what? things like this happen everyday in the market,
But Apple pretend they do not do this, which was the point.
just take a look at Microsoft's latest great idea
(introducing a Microsoft based retail store, with special bars called the "Guru Bar".. i wonder where on earth they got that idea from!!)
Oh yeah, I forgot Apple invented retails shop with some experts behind a counter. That had never been done before!
that is why they have become so successful, great marketing
Absolutely, to make up for other deficiencies they went on the offensive and did a lot of negative marketing, most of it lies and distortions. Not legal in the UK and they get told off repeatedly or doing so and have had to retract their ads.
the market seems to be going that way though, sex sells!
Uh, always has been the case!
apple products are sexy! simple as that. the markup is a small price to pay for the social-status.
Actually it's a large price, Apple have the biggest mark up in the industry. Only idiots are impressed by labels anyway. And Apple is a label.
i still disagree with your points about the products being crap
im just ignoring eheh.
Both my MacPro and my MacBok Pro have been faulty, my 'Mighty' mouse is constantly failing to scroll as it uses the stupid ball on top, which is the same design as old mice with balls on the bottom,
which were replaced by lasers as the balls constantly clogged up. Oh Apple claimed to have pioneered laser tracking in their ads, a couple of years after I had one for my PC.
And the sharp edge on my new MacBook Pro is very uncomfortable on your forearms. A 'Genius' in the store told me that you get used to it as calluses form.
im sure if you approached them about it they wouldnt deny it, the same as with Microsoft (both would make excuses, but wouldnt deny it totally).
You're kidding right!
can you find me an article of some sort that shows that they denied giving in?? im sure that their usability testers ran many tests and found that it wasnt necessary for that point in time and on their software.
The original rational was that more than 2 buttons on a mouse would confuse people. They seemed to overlook the 100+ on keyboard next to it. Then MS added lots and people loved how it made life easier, Apple could not be seen to be so obviously playing catch up, so they simply ignored the fact it was better. Also Jobs apparently hates buttons, hence the lack of them on the iPhone, bar one. I never said they denied giving in, I said the hid the fact that they had [by the design] and the default settings also were set to single button mode for a similar reason.
Cntrl + Shift + Alt + Key is for save to web?? doesnt seem that hard to me.. i can do it in an instant.
But did you do it one handed? It a very commonly complained about shortcut [on Mac keyboards] on the Adobe forums and I've seen people teach the first thing to do when they intall PS [on a Mac] is to change it to something easier.
on my keyboard, hitting the "Ctrl" key is so so much harder with my pinkie then hitting the :Apple: key. especially since its got crap filled up in there, its hard to press normally let alone when its filled up! i still maintain that using the thumb is much easier then the pinkie.
That's probably more because you are relearning muscle memory, which most people find very hard. I'm fortunate in that I can change long term physical habits quite quickly or partition specific physical skills. Also useful when practising different martial arts or dances as they vary considerably in the muscle memory areas. And from teaching things in many fields, I've discovered that is a very rare ability, people are very, very reluctant to learn a better way of doing things, even if it makes their lives much easier.
no grasping at all, just showing that MS OS is not perfect either.
Never said it wasn't but your 'bad thing' was trivial in comparison to the flaws I mentioned.
using your PS CS4 example, i would say that on OSX the program's UI follows the 'norm' of OSX a lot more then the PC version of PC CS4. the problem with MS's OS's is that its much more open to change in the UI, making it unpredictable and .. not ugly.. just less 'attractive'.
The other view is that's it's more flexible, I can make it look like OSX if I like or something else entirely. Choice and personalisation is good when it comes to UI as people vary widely in their workflows. And both the PC and Mac versions of PS CS4 broke OS conventions, both for the better. Hardly anyone complained on the PC side as it was better and there was torrent of mostly ignorant abuse from Mac users who ranted and raved at great length about Adobe changing things, despite the fact the old clumsy way was still there.
Final Cut and other Pro apps also break OSX conventions and are better for it, as do many audio apps on both OSs. Why? One size does not fit all. Though Apple try that tactic as a money saving measure - one reason Apple is so very profitable is that they use very few physical variations in their products, which also makes a mockery of their 'Think Different' mantra as it should be 'Think Different, as long as it's exactly the same way we think'.
boy is this getting long!
sorry for the late reply, been busy
What the record for longest post on here?
No rush to finish discussion either. I just pop in when I have some down time.
oh: i downloaded Pendulum, they arent that bad - not exactly my preferred sounds but pretty good dance music.
Did you try and listen to any of the other stuff mentioned. I think you may like some 70s music, judging by the stuff you mentioned liking before. But can't think of any names offhand.
