"Side Bar" WTF

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

spamcourt — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 01:21:55 GMT

I feel like this chart is relevant in plenty of threads.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

Daniel Beardsmore — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:28:24 GMT

topspin:
What is the rationale behind this again?

Evidently the studies conducted by the Explorer and Internet Explorer teams didn't reach the same conclusions as the studies conducted by all the other teams.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

topspin — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:55:42 GMT

fatbull:
I suspect a daylight savings time bug (CEST ended on 2012-10-28).

Don't believe it. That should just throw off the sorting for one hour, not weeks. But yeah, who knows.

Daniel Beardsmore:
Explorer/Internet Explorer? No title captions.

What is the rationale behind this again? That window has a caption bar. So they improved usability or anything by keeping the caption bar but having it empty? WTF?!

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

ender — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:30:42 GMT

Daniel Beardsmore:
Windows 8 has now decided that all captions should go in the centre. (Office 2007 used pale captions that looked like the window never took the focus. Seriously WTF.)

Caption position is just another of those inconsistent things - in Windows 8, caption is actually in the centre between the upper ribbon tab marker (which highlights the tabs specific to currently chosen object) and the window buttons, while in Office 2010 the marker is ignored, and the caption is instead centred in the titlebar. I actually find non left-justified titlebars somewhat annoying in Windows 8, because things move around, and I have to scan around to find the information that was previously in a fairly static place.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

Daniel Beardsmore — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:29:47 GMT

blakeyrat:
Meh... 9 yeah. Prior to about version 8.6 or so, it was always excellent. Really I talk about the decline of Classic, but the real problem started even in the Classic era.

I tried Mac OS 9 multi-user briefly, too — that was a complete WTF unto itself :)

For all its faults though, Mac OS was an awesome system.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

blakeyrat — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:20:36 GMT

Daniel Beardsmore:
I am pretty sure I'm elitist, but I never claimed to believe that Mac users are stupid.

I never said you did.

Daniel Beardsmore:
Since 8 or 9 at the very least (since in 7, it really did very little). I had a lot of really weird problems in the Finder in 9, including a spell of a week or two where it made a point of crashing exactly once a day, but never at the same time as the day before. Never did that before, never did it again after that. (And every crash ended up requiring a reboot; my Mac was always on.)

Meh... 9 yeah. Prior to about version 8.6 or so, it was always excellent. Really I talk about the decline of Classic, but the real problem started even in the Classic era.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

Daniel Beardsmore — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:14:06 GMT

Mcoder:
It gets worse. Because the ribon is so large, less used options go into one of the lots of almost invisible drop-downs near the buttons …

AAAARRGHH!!! I hate those! Seriously, you can spend ages trawling through the higgledy-piggledy arrangements of ribbon controls (columns, rows, columns within rows, rows within columns, big icons, small icons, commands inside button menus, commands inside corner menus, corner menus that open modal dialogs that you have to cancel out of, corner menus that open side panels that you have to go back and close (can't be consistent about this after all)) trying to figure out where something is in Office.

It would be solved instantly if it just had a box where you could type what you wanted ("style gallery") and the correct ribbon tab came up and a big arrow pointed at the appropriate control.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

Daniel Beardsmore — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:07:49 GMT

blakeyrat:
"Stupid" has nothing to do with anything. Don't repeat that kind of bullshit, the IT industry is already full of enough elitist pricks.

I am pretty sure I'm elitist, but I never claimed to believe that Mac users are stupid. Your shoulder aliens were speaking to you!

blakeyrat:
"Always"? Or "OS X always"? Finder used to be brilliant in Classic. It's always been shit in OS X.

Since 8 or 9 at the very least (since in 7, it really did very little). I had a lot of really weird problems in the Finder in 9, including a spell of a week or two where it made a point of crashing exactly once a day, but never at the same time as the day before. Never did that before, never did it again after that. (And every crash ended up requiring a reboot; my Mac was always on.)

blakeyrat:
I've always thought Explorer's biggest weakness is the lack of a strong cohesive design philosophy.

That's a problem with Windows in general. People can't even agree on Tools → Options and stick with it. Microsoft just lack the ability to lead from a design or consistency perspective. Explorer/Internet Explorer? No title captions. Office? Centre captions like a Mac. Other programs with a ribbon in Windows 7? Left caption. Windows 8 has now decided that all captions should go in the centre. (Office 2007 used pale captions that looked like the window never took the focus. Seriously WTF.)

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

blakeyrat — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:06:19 GMT

Mcoder:
But, to be fair, yes, bash is more "expert" than Power Shell.

How so?

Do you define "expert" as "person who has spent years memorizing Unix CLI syntax"? Because I can't think of any other definition by which Bash is more "expert" than PowerShell.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

Mcoder — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:59:56 GMT

blakeyrat:
You don't include Apple... why?

I simply can't think about "power users" and "Apple" at the same time. (Writing that was HARD!) But, to be fair, yes, bash is more "expert" than Power Shell. OS-X inherited a nice set of features from their Unix origins.

Cassidy:
AIUI, the basis of the ribbon was a study commissioned by Microsoft which found over 80% of requested new features already existed, so MS decided to expose them as a horizontal menu that remained onscreen rather than a vertical dropdown list that vanished once a single option had been selected.

Yet, they only show a small subset of them each time, what is a good thing, but simply negates that objective.

Cassidy:
The Win8 ribbon should have be arranged so that the most common options appear (and are most apparent) first...

And it is. Well, except for printing. What further negates the objective you stated, beause most users know where the most used features are. If they need to expose something, it is the less used ones.

It gets worse. Because the ribon is so large, less used options go into one of the lots of almost invisible drop-downs near the buttons. And the even less used options go into ribons that are invisible by default, and only get visible once you change a hard to find setting. In the end the ribbon makes seldon features even harder to find, but hey, MS had already invested $$$$ (and lots of political capital) into it, so they can't just change course, right? Let's make it straight ahead into that iceberg!

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

blakeyrat — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:35:04 GMT

Daniel Beardsmore:
No, I'm asking whether Mac users all struggle to use their computers to the same extent, as this would suggest that Apple are seriously failing their users in terms of UI innovation. (I'm not denying this — it may be true. I rarely use Macs nowadays.) At the same time, Mac users have (hopefully an underserved) reputation for being stupid, which means that they should be really struggling!

From my experience, Mac users are more likely to:
1) Own and use their own computer (Mac users don't share; Windows users frequently do)
2) Do fewer tasks with their computer (using fewer applications on average to accomplish them)
3) Favor "open" dialogs or application-maintained databases over folder navigation

You'll note Apple has been developing apps towards those ends for years now.

"Stupid" has nothing to do with anything. Don't repeat that kind of bullshit, the IT industry is already full of enough elitist pricks.

Daniel Beardsmore:
Incidentally, the Mac's Finder for me was always hopelessy buggy.

"Always"? Or "OS X always"? Finder used to be brilliant in Classic. It's always been shit in OS X.

Daniel Beardsmore:
I've always felt that the file system managers—Explorer and Finder—were by far the most bug-ridden components of their respective operating systems. Incorrect date sorting (per the OP) is just one of a really, really long list of stuff that doesn't work in Explorer.

I've always thought Explorer's biggest weakness is the lack of a strong cohesive design philosophy. Drag&drop? Sure. Copy&paste? Why not. Drag&paste? ... sure, ok! Task-based controls on folder windows? Let's add those in XP! Vista: where'd the task-based controls go? Windows 7: oh wait now some are back. Menus on Windows? Of course. Using the standard OS menu code? Nope! We want BROKEN menus! etc.

It's good for what it is, the problem is it doesn't know what the hell it is.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

Daniel Beardsmore — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:20:23 GMT

Sutherlands:
You have a study that says that people actually know what features exist in the Mac versions?

No, I'm asking whether Mac users all struggle to use their computers to the same extent, as this would suggest that Apple are seriously failing their users in terms of UI innovation. (I'm not denying this — it may be true. I rarely use Macs nowadays.) At the same time, Mac users have (hopefully an underserved) reputation for being stupid, which means that they should be really struggling!

Incidentally, the Mac's Finder for me was always hopelessy buggy. Even by Tiger (10.4), I had problems like disappearing scroll bars, Info windows opening with the bottom obscured by the Dock, broken authentication, moving files to the Trash in a window titled "Copy" (copying files to the Trash…?)

I've always felt that the file system managers—Explorer and Finder—were by far the most bug-ridden components of their respective operating systems. Incorrect date sorting (per the OP) is just one of a really, really long list of stuff that doesn't work in Explorer.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

Sutherlands — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:12:11 GMT

Daniel Beardsmore:
How do Mac users cope? Mac users are all supposed to be idiots, yet Macs never had toolbars in the OS at all. There was a huge outcry when Apple dared to add toolbars to the UI with Mac OS X, but Apple toolbars are exactly what toolbars are supposed to be: a small, easily configurable set of buttons for the most common tasks (which is what the Quick Access Toolbar is, except with tiny icons). For everything else, there's the menu bar.

There was a huge outcry with the ribbon, too. It's just that Microsoft kept it because they had, you know, data, from like, studies. You have a study that says that people actually know what features exist in the Mac versions?

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

Daniel Beardsmore — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:53:48 GMT

Cassidy:
.. but if the default options don't suit then people can customise it to their particular preferences.

In Windows 7, this is just Office: you can't customise the ribbon in Wordpad or Paint for example. Maybe Windows 8 ribbons don't suck so much, and maybe now you can rearrange QAT icons in all programs …

Cassidy:
The flipside is burying them behind several menu trees which people won't navigate, bringing about the oft-quoted "where IS that option" or "I didn't know you could do that!"

How do Mac users cope? Mac users are all supposed to be idiots, yet Macs never had toolbars in the OS at all. There was a huge outcry when Apple dared to add toolbars to the UI with Mac OS X, but Apple toolbars are exactly what toolbars are supposed to be: a small, easily configurable set of buttons for the most common tasks (which is what the Quick Access Toolbar is, except with tiny icons). For everything else, there's the menu bar.

Re: Explorer fails at sorting

blakeyrat — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:35:07 GMT

Ben L.:
Are you saying that JScript, the bastard child of JavaScript and VBScript, is useful?

Yes, of course it is.

Less so now that more alternatives exist.