UI Opinions

Marcel Weiher marcel at metaobject.com
Fri Apr 28 10:03:02 UTC 2000


> From: Russell Allen <russell.allen at firebirdmedia.com>

> This is interesting.  Was the Next dock aligned along one of the  
sides of
> the screen to take advantage of Fitt's Law when dragging/selecting 
> minimized windows?

The dock actually was not a place where minimized icons went  
automatically, this is something that's new in OS-X.  The dock was a  
repository for your ~10 most frequently used applications and the  
recycler, located on the right side of the screen.   It could be used  
both for launching these applications and for switching to them.   
Dragging documents on top of the app-icon for opening was added  
later.

Applications not in the dock, as well as minimized document windows  
automatically went to the bottom of the screen, left to right and  
bottom to top.  No scaling, all the tiles were a constant, fairly  
large size.  Applicaion tiles sometimes animated to show application  
status.  For example, the "clock" application was nothing but an  
animated application tile.

It was all highly effective in creating a transparent interface for  
working with multiple collaborating applications, where you directly  
to what you want to do instead of working the computer/interface.   
I've never seen anything like it, especially for working with many  
applications simultaneously.

Marcel





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