From: johnsd2@jec325.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: IBM Funny
Reply-To: johnsd2@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 16:37:40 GMT

In article <TOMSTER.92Oct6230420@bigwpi.WPI.EDU>, tomster@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Thomas Richard Dibble) writes:
|> In article <6143.2ad1d8e4@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
|> 
|>    In article <1992Oct03.035244.20191@NeoSoft.com>, peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
|>    > In article <6092.2ac9c038@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
[delitia- consitency, consistenly]

|>    > ALT<SPACE> pulls up a standard menu that includes quit.
|> 
|>    Nope. It contains CLOSE. Not Quit. Wrong again, Peter.
|> 
|> Bill, dear, I ask you again:  "WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLOSE, QUIT, AND
|> EXIT ???!!!???

If I may interject, they mean different things?

|> THERE IS NONE.

not.

I think you need the services of a dictionary. :) But I dont
have one handy.

|> 
|> THEY ARE (listen closely now) S-Y-N-O-N-Y-M-S.  THEY MEAN THEY SAME THING TO
|> ALL OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD.

Really? Id say they mean:

Close:	To shut, as in "close a door" or to conclude, as in "to close an
	investigation"

Quit:	To resign, as in "I quit my job", or to stop, as in
	"I quit smoking"

Exit:	To leave, (Exit in an orderly fashion) or an egress (The
	exits are marked in plain..)

They don't sound the same to me. And as I speak English, they dont mean
the same thing to ALL of the English-speaking world.

|> If you are saying that most users don't understand the meaning of 'close'
|> or 'exit' I'd have to say you are quite disillusioned.

They also mean different things on the Macintosh. Close is
something you do to a window, making it go away. Quit
is somethin gyou do to an application, which closes
its windows and makes the app go away. I dont particularly
like this, but its true.

It seems to be that Windows was trying to copy this part,
so you have "Close" on all windows and "Exit" for apps. But
it gets ambiguous on windows.

|> Quit splitting this anal-retentive hair, please.

Now ->THAT<- conjures up some vivid imagery. :)

|> Sorry about the caps ...

Its alright.

[deletia- more powerfull query not directed at me]

|>    >> Less surprising. NOT! Windows lacks consistancy between applications. Quick!
|>    >> What do the middle and right buttons do on the Windows mouse?
|>    > 
|>    > What do they do on the Mac mouse? Oh, they don't have physical buttons there,
|> 
|>    Right. So there's less confusion about what button to press.
|> 
|> Again.  If you want to pretend you have only one button, *use* only the left
|> button.  The other button(s) are not necessary.  They do, however, make 
|> certain tasks go easier.

Its very nice to say "use only the left button", but people get confused
over it all the time anyway. It would probably be better if we wrote
"use only me!" on the left button. :)

|>    > Both the Mac and Windows use a single-button mouse model with modifiers
|>    > left up to the application.
|> 
|>    Except in the Mac environment, the modifiers are defined. See the Apple HIG.
|> 
|> See the Microsoft CUA.  Left-button mousing is very well defined.

If only the Apps followed that guideline.. :) [what IS that guideline
anyway?]

I dont know about modifiers- care to tell me what the guideliens are
about it in Windows?

|>    >> Better Feedback? In what way?
|>    > 
|>    > More consistent and reliable reaction to user command actions. 
|> 
|>    I find the MacOS tons more consistant. 

Me too. :)

|>    > Closer ties between keyboard and mouse actions.
|> 
|>    I don't see what you mean here. Perhaps you could provide an example.
|> 
|> Well, lets start with the menus.  Alt-<E> is the Edit menu.  All the items
|> within the menu have an Alt-<> equivalent.  By selecting these with your
|> mouse you start learing the structure of the menus.  You are constantly
|> exposed to the keyboard shortcuts for *every* menu item, not just the select
|> few the programmer thought you might actually use frequently.

Actually, the Apple Human Interface Dudz thot of the standard ones. Programmers
can implement more if they like.

|> Secondly, everything you can do with the mouse you can do with the keyboard.
|> This doesn't mean it is easier (I would hate to have to resize windows without
|> a mouse), but the functionality is there.

That's nice.

[deletia- whats a UI issue]
|>    >> Wrong. You bring up a dialog window, and ALT <ET>, ALT <EC> and ALT <EP>
|>    >> (Cut, Copy, and Paste, respectively) won't work.
|>    > 
|>    > Good point.
|> 
|>    Ha! Gotcha.
|> 
|> I still don't get this.  When do you need the menus while within a dialog box?

You need menus to use the Alt-<whateveritwas> shortcuts to cut, copy
and paste in dialogs. YOu ahve to use teh ctrl-pageup or ctrl-v,etc
keyboard shortcuts. These are shortcuts you rarely use, and have no
easy way to discovert (that I know of) in a dialog.

|>    >> Note that your message didn't even have these correct, or perhaps there's 
|>    >> even more variance between apps than I thought.
|>    > 
|>    > I don't know. I'm not discussing the applications. I'm discussing the user
|>    > interface.
|> 
|>    Applications are very much part of the user interface.
|> 
|> Except many are written by different programmers, few come with the interface
|> (meaning not everyone has the same ones), and they all do at least *some*thing
|> different than all the others.

Yeah, this is true. But the standard elements (ie most of them) remain
the same between apps, for the vast majority of apps. When apps fail
to follow the Guidelines, this IS a flaw in teh user interface of all
the computers using that app.

The Human Interface Guidelines and teh Toolbox are intended to minimize
this problem, and they do a pretty good job (imho).

[deletia- more on those damn shortcuts]
|>    >> > Quick, on the Mac, what's the keyboard shortcut for "Print Draft"?
|>    > 
|>    >> There's no such shortcut. You print by pressing Command-P. You select 
|>    >> draft mode in the subsequent job dialog.
|>    > 
|>    > I don't want a job dialog. I just want to print something and get on with
|>    > it (here we get back to GUI versus CLI, actually).
|> 
|>    Then do command-P, and hit return in the Job dialog.
|> 
|>    Windows doesn't have a "Print Draft" keyboard shortcut. The only one defined
|>    is File / Print (gee, I wonder where they got that from?)
|> 
|> But there *is* a hotkey to select the draft option within the dialog ...

A standard hotkey?
Really?

|>    >> I picked a generic example -- Cut, Copy and Paste. Things that you use all
|>    >> the time in every application (practically). Notice that you picked an 
|>    >> obscure example. 
|>    > 
|>    > Well, I don't ever use cut myself, just copy and paste. So why should I
|>    > bother remembering what the Cut mnemonic is.
|> 
|>    You still have to remember copy and paste, and you didn't even do that.
|>    You're trying to weasel out.
|> 
|> Well, you change operating systems and see how well you remember the Mac's
|> cut & paste shortcuts four years from now.

:)
That's the POINT. Our memories aren't superhuman either. That's why
we use the menus. That's the problem pull-down menus solve.

[deletia- more shortcuts ]
|>    >> I disagree. Come back in 5 years when there's some modicum of consistancy.
|>    > 
|>    > That's an application issue. Seriously. 
|> 
|>    Applications are part of the user interface. An important part, I might add.
|> 
|> Applications, their breadth and consistency, change *much* faster than os's.

True. So?

|>    >> > In any case, the two suits cover basically the same ground. Xerox invented
|>    >> > most of the items Apple claimed rights to.
|>    > 
|>    >> If you believe that, then you believe that Apple should win the MS/HP suit.
|>    > 
|>    > No, I believe that neither of these suits should stand. Apple did have a
|>    > couple of minor points that were valid but the rest of the
|>    > Windows interface is no closer to Apple's than it is to Xeroxes. 
|> 
|>    If you support Xerox's claim, then you have to support Apple's. There is no
|>    middle ground.
|> 
|> Huh?

He means that if Xerox had rights on its interface (which Apple bought),
then Apple has rights on ITS interface and can sue. If Apple's is close
enough the the Star's interface to be sued over, then Windows is close
enough to Apple's.

Why this is relevant, I've no idea.

-- 
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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