The actual mail that lead to this discussion was from Philippe whose intention was to give feedback and suggestions to further improve LookEnhancements. Unfortunately, and I think that's almost a pattern in this community, this lead to a discussion which is not constructive. It can be interesting to argue about those things of course, but often it does not get us forward. It would have been helpful to either argue for or against why the "o" icon of Squeak is more intuitive than for example the "-" of OS X and make real suggestions how to improve the current look. So, anybody having good ideas for the windows icons, or is the current situation just that good that we can't improve?
Adrian
OK, apologies, actual suggestions from now on. Any chance you could add a preference for thinner window borders? It'd be nice to have the outer borders be as thin as the borders between panes, and maybe a thinner title bar too. Just overall a slimmer look, as an option. It'd also be really nice if windows would snap to alignment against other windows or against the outer borders of the screen, maybe there's something like this and I just don't know about it, if so I'd like to know.
Hi Ramon,
On 8/5/05, Ramon Leon rleon@insario.com wrote:
OK, apologies, actual suggestions from now on. Any chance you could add a preference for thinner window borders? It'd be nice to have the outer borders be as thin as the borders between panes, and maybe a thinner title bar too. Just overall a slimmer look, as an option.
I'm looking into slimmer window borders in the same vein as the thinner splitters that I've done. I'll see if we can get this in.
It'd also be
really nice if windows would snap to alignment against other windows or against the outer borders of the screen, maybe there's something like this and I just don't know about it, if so I'd like to know.
Sounds a bit more involved than thinner window borders. I think it is an interesting idea, but I need to ponder it a bit before I decide if I like the idea. I get a little wary of user interfaces that try to do too much. So the question in mind is "is it natural for windows to know about other windows as if you are laying out tiles on the screen?" or would this feature frustrate users when they are trying to overlap windows slightly? I dunno right now because I don't know of too many user interfaces that do this. Do you care to submit a changeset that does this?
John
Hi all,
I've checked in version 45 of LookEnhancements. In this release window borders have been put on a diet shedding 1/3 of their width. I thought about making it a preference, but I kind of like the thinner borders the more I look at them. If there is anyone that really wants thicker borders (we are talking 4 pixels vs. the former 6 pixels) then let me know. It would be real easy to make a preference, but I kind of don't like lots of preferences if no one particularly cares.
Anyways, enjoy.
John
PS - If thinner borders is amenable to all then I will post this update on SqueakMap as the latest edition.
PSS - I worry that thinner borders and resize regions works directly against Fitts Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27_law) making resizing windows / panes take longer for the user to complete. Thoughts from the community?.
On 8/6/05, John Pierce john.raymond.pierce@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Ramon,
On 8/5/05, Ramon Leon rleon@insario.com wrote:
OK, apologies, actual suggestions from now on. Any chance you could add a preference for thinner window borders? It'd be nice to have the outer borders be as thin as the borders between panes, and maybe a thinner title bar too. Just overall a slimmer look, as an option.
I'm looking into slimmer window borders in the same vein as the thinner splitters that I've done. I'll see if we can get this in.
It'd also be
really nice if windows would snap to alignment against other windows or against the outer borders of the screen, maybe there's something like this and I just don't know about it, if so I'd like to know.
Sounds a bit more involved than thinner window borders. I think it is an interesting idea, but I need to ponder it a bit before I decide if I like the idea. I get a little wary of user interfaces that try to do too much. So the question in mind is "is it natural for windows to know about other windows as if you are laying out tiles on the screen?" or would this feature frustrate users when they are trying to overlap windows slightly? I dunno right now because I don't know of too many user interfaces that do this. Do you care to submit a changeset that does this?
John
-- It's easy to have a complicated idea. It's very very hard to have a simple idea. -- Carver Mead
John Pierce john.raymond.pierce@gmail.com wrote:
[snip]
It would be real easy to make a preference, but I kind of don't like lots of
preferences if
no one particularly cares.
I do care and I agree with you - too many preferences are a menace. Far too often 'make it a preference' is really code for 'we cant work out a proper solution'.
PSS - I worry that thinner borders and resize regions works directly
against
Fitts Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27_law) making resizing
windows
/ panes take longer for the user to complete. Thoughts from the
community?.
I prefer thinner borders. I don't much like constantly active resize buttons/regions/doohickeys because they are often too easy to activate accidentally. And since resizing can be a rather expensive operation this gets to be an irritating time waster. My solution would be for resize handle to be active only with a modifier of some sort - a different mouse button, a metakey for those condemned to single buttons, even a gesture if applicable. Certainly the current implementation details of resize areas in Morphic is horrible in my experience.
tim -- Tim Rowledge, tim@rowledge.org, http://www.rowledge.org/tim "How many Teela Browns does it take to change a lightbulb?" "Stupid question."
Hi,
thank you for the thiner borders, they are better I think.
But I have a problem, something very strange:
Sometimes I can resize the windows very fast (with the black border) and sometimes all the frames in the window are being resized at the same time which is much much slower.
Now, I will try to define 'sometimes'. My preferences :
resizeOnAllSides => true fastSplitterResize => true fastDragWindowForMorphic => true
All the borders allow me to always resize my windows fast, but the lower right one. The lower right one allow sometimes fast resize and sometimes not.
If I put resizeOnAllSides => false, then the lower right border is the only border where I can resize windows and it is always slow.
To resume because my english is far from perfect: ---------------------------------- | lower right | other borders | ----------------------------------------------------------- |resizeOnAllSides true | fast or slow | always fast | |resizeOnAllSides false | always slow | impossible | -----------------------------------------------------------
Tell me if you want me to do more tests or if I'm not clear.
I'll take a look sometime tonight and see what is going on. Thanks, John
On 8/8/05, Damien Cassou cassou@iam.unibe.ch wrote:
Hi,
thank you for the thiner borders, they are better I think.
But I have a problem, something very strange:
Sometimes I can resize the windows very fast (with the black border) and sometimes all the frames in the window are being resized at the same time which is much much slower.
Now, I will try to define 'sometimes'. My preferences :
resizeOnAllSides => true fastSplitterResize => true fastDragWindowForMorphic => true
All the borders allow me to always resize my windows fast, but the lower right one. The lower right one allow sometimes fast resize and sometimes not.
If I put resizeOnAllSides => false, then the lower right border is the only border where I can resize windows and it is always slow.
To resume because my english is far from perfect:
| lower right | other borders |
|resizeOnAllSides true | fast or slow | always fast | |resizeOnAllSides false | always slow | impossible |
Tell me if you want me to do more tests or if I'm not clear.
-- Damien Cassou pour le Software Composition Group a Berne
squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org
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Damien Cassou -
John Pierce -
Ramon Leon -
Tim Rowledge