Re: [Usability] Reasoning behind default panel setup?




On 26 Jan 2006, at 16:37, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
We have gotten lost in the Win95 task bar style, but i believe it uses up
too much space for its own good.

I'm not sure why the Mac OS X (http://www.apple.com/macosx/) style is better then?

Since there are no texts on the running program icons. This makes it much more feasible to locate the dock on the side of the screen or scale it to your taste. Also, hiding the doc in OS X is easy with short-cut keys which leaves you with only the top bar that is about the height of the text + some.


Also, OS X does not list open windows in it's dock. You get to those via the single icon (right click or hold down the click for a longer time). The Doc icon brings up all the application windows but those minimized. Good or bad? Not my call, but I like it.

I really, really hate the windows task bar in vertical level when you have many apps open and the text spreads along the whole top/bottom of the screen. If you tilt it to a side, it takes a wide stripe off you screen but lessens the hassle with many windows. Neither is elegant on windows, me thinks.

(yes, I noticed the fancy plans for the bottom bar, but try that on a
800x600 screen and tell me it's better than single panel)

I would not dare to. :) But, even on larger screens... Well, I have got those screen for a reason and the reason is not to waste the space for panels, menus or docs or how ever you want to call them. No pixel more than I feel need to sacrifice for the sake of the usability.



Janne Kaasalainen janne.kaasalainen@xxxxxxx / jpkaasal@xxxxxxxxx

"What goes up, must come down. Unless it goes up a very long way."


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