I'm baaack. =P

Andreas Raab Andreas.Raab at gmx.de
Thu Aug 8 14:04:07 UTC 2002


Alan,

I see your points but what can I say?! People always tell us that
"Squeak ought to do X, Y, and Z" but unless somebody actually does it,
there won't be any change. If you find the color selection dialog to be
crucial for usability and the success of Squeak, *and* if you want to
help us then please do it!

Cheers,
  - Andreas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-admin at lists.squeakfoundation.org 
> [mailto:squeak-dev-admin at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On 
> Behalf Of Alan Grimes
> Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2002 8:05 AM
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: I'm baaack. =P 
> 
> 
> 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/
> 




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