om

I will be discussing my current project in a few bays. (after I have
finished all the tutorials.)

In this message I feel the need to report a critical usability deficit. 

I was going through the tutorial and using the "system browser" do the
stuff. I was annoyed by the diabolicaly evil green-on-green invisable
cursor. And that's where things really started to go bad. I pulled up
the color menu expecting a system like I had been used to with
practically every OS I've ever used. Instead, it just gave me a useless
color mat that only changed the background of the entire thing. I have
been messing with it for ten minutes and now the thing looks like a
hideous circus tent. =( 

For comparison, let me describe the color selection system in windows
3.11, the OS that I am composing this message in: 

The first menu lets you select a pre-defined color scheme, as well as
several functions for maintaining the scheme database (its not really a
database, I know). You hit a button that means, basically, "more" and it
gives you the ability to select exactly what color you want to change.
It requires almost no effort to select any color in the OS and set it to
a palate composed of clearly defined colors. Each color is presented in
a conveniently large rectangle that makes it very easy for the user to
select the one he wants. Do you want yellow? you hit the yellow
rectangle! 

On squeak one can never select the correct pixel for pure yellow because
it is too damn small and there is no way to find it reliably... Windowze
for Weenies really pulls through here because the colors are right
there... 

Windows 3.11 is already giving Squeak a pounding here, now here's the
killer: There is a big rectangular button on this extended menu that
basically means "Give me more"!!!" 

This button gives a big color map, just like squeak, but with critical
differences: 

1. the color selected window is BIG, About 100x as large. =))))
2. It provides not one but TWO numericall methods for specifying the
color you want. If you want a RGB value of 90,70,45 YOU EITHER ENTER THE
NUMBERS OR USE THE INC/DEC BUTTONS!!! 

BeOS has roughly this ability, but I said that there were two numerical
systems, the other is based on Hue/Saturation/Luminosity. 

All this put togeather means that Windows 3.11 looks precicely the way I
like it even at 24bit color, while Squeak looks like a circus tent. 

This complaint may seem a bit rude as this is a free, open, loose
project and such but really, the technology behind this software
deserves a much better showing. Heck, I would be happy to start a
company to ship computers that run nothing but squeak! =P For
comparison, Linux isn't even worthy of this kind of complaint, it would
presume that the software was of the quality that the user would even
bother with the colors. -- linux isn't even half that good. ;)

But really, for squeak to really make it big it must be competitive with
Windows 3.11 at least!!! =\ 

-- 
Linux has more source code than my brain.
http://users.rcn.com/alangrimes/