[Tfug] Speaking of desktops (little 'd')...

[John Gruenenfelder]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 07:46:31PM -0800, Bexley Hall wrote:
>What are the "inexcusable sins" encountered in current
>"user interfaces" (sorry for the imprecision but intend that
>to encompass all sorts of interactive devices).
>
>E.g., highest on my Piss List is "never steal the focus".
>*I* should decide what I am interacting with, not "the
>machine".
>
>Aside from that, other "PC desktop" (windowed environments)
>issues that I'm undecided about include things like
>- focus follows cursor (in some cases, I like this; at
>  other times, it is a nuisance.  Maybe the application
>  should convey this to the window manager as a 'preference'?)
>- auto raise when in focus (I consider this A Bad Idea in
>  almost all circumstances)
>
>I also dislike having menus, toolbars, etc. *in* the application
>windows.  I liked the way the old MacOS handled this -- though
>I suspect that it has gone away in OS X (?)
>
>But, what about the other "channels" used to convey information
>to the user.  E.g., should any app be able to "make noise"
>whenever it wants?  Or, should the noises that it is allowed to
>make be tied to where the user's focus resides?  Etc.

Ooohh, this is getting close to religious war territory.  :)

Problem is, even a term like "inexcusable sin" is variable depending on the
user.  My desktop preferences seem almost opposite from what you prefer.

I like "focus on map" as default, but an app should not otherwise grab focus.
I always turn on focus follows cursor *and* auto-raise (500ms delay).  As for
noise, I prefer to let apps make all the noise they like since it tends to be
made in response to input (i.e. play this song) or to signal a message or
error.

My personal WM sin choices are the window manager stealing *all* focus except
for some supposedly critical error dialog on the screen.  This is mostly
directed at Windows where this sort of behavior is common.  In my experience,
X WMs almost always allow you to focus some other window and often move other
windows beneath the modal dialog currently displayed.

The other big annoyance is small unresizable windows.  This is *very* common
with Windows where they delight in presenting a 200x100 dialog with about ten
pages of text in it, or some 20 column table you have to scroll through.  This
annoyance does occur in X too, but less frequently.  Also, it's an app
decision, not a WM decision, though I suppose the WM could override it in some
cases.


-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Systems Manager, MKS Imaging Technology, LLC.
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