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Invisible wrote:
> It was sort of like Windows 98, except... something was wrong with it.
> Personally, it wasn't until I encountered a machine actually running it
> that I discovered why it's so hated. It looked like 98, but... every
> week I had to remove several hundred viruses from it, and it would be
> behaviour strangely in one way or another... very odd.
My WindowsME system worked fine. It was almost indistinguishable from
98. I think it had the compressed folders feature, which is present in
Windows XP. But that was about it. What was wrong with it is it was
built on the old Win 95 architecture.
--
~Mike
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Invisible wrote:
> http://www.bash.org/?106605 THIS might be true though! :-/
I think they call it XBox LIVE. :-)
I saw an interview with some high-up at MS, either Gates or Balmer I
forget, where they were asked about their biggest mistake, and they said
something like "Discounting Windows ME, I'd have to say it was ...."
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> wrote:
> My WindowsME system worked fine. It was almost indistinguishable from
> 98. I think it had the compressed folders feature, which is present in
> Windows XP. But that was about it.
You forgot one of the most braindead ideas that has ever come from
Microsoft: Adaptive menus.
I still can't understand why *anyone* could think that menus whose
contents change during time is a good idea. One of the most basic
principles of GUI design is that everything should work consistently
and always the same way. Some functionality might change depending on
context, but even there you shouldn't go to extremes. What is braindead
about the adaptive menus is that they contents don't change depending on
the context, they can change even during identical operations.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> wrote:
>> My WindowsME system worked fine. It was almost indistinguishable from
>> 98. I think it had the compressed folders feature, which is present in
>> Windows XP. But that was about it.
>
> You forgot one of the most braindead ideas that has ever come from
> Microsoft: Adaptive menus.
I don't know. I like adaptive menus, when they're done well. The "new"
start menu, that puts the programs you use all the time near the top,
and the 2003-era Word menus, where they only show you options you've
used but reveal everything if you hover for a bit, both seem to work
nicely and without much confusion, once you figure out what's going on.
Now, stuff where it rearranges itself and does *not* present all the
possibilities is nasty, yes.
The "search" stuff in Vista seems to work nicely, too. I haven't tried
the ribbon stuff, either, but that looks ugly.
I think you have to do something when you wind up with so many options
they no longer even fit on a menu. That's probably one reason MS has
good help systems - you'd not find half the stuff if you couldn't search
help for "where the H___ have you hidden the XYZ options in *this*
version now???"
And I still miss the Smalltalk technique of bringing up the pop-up menu
such that the previous thing you selected is selected again for you. :-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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>> You forgot one of the most braindead ideas that has ever come from
>> Microsoft: Adaptive menus.
>
> I don't know. I like adaptive menus, when they're done well. The "new"
> start menu, that puts the programs you use all the time near the top,
> and the 2003-era Word menus, where they only show you options you've
> used but reveal everything if you hover for a bit, both seem to work
> nicely and without much confusion, once you figure out what's going on.
>
> Now, stuff where it rearranges itself and does *not* present all the
> possibilities is nasty, yes.
The key thing is, Word menues do not change their ordering at random.
They only change which options are or aren't visible initially.
The new-style start menu is just horrid. Each time you use a different
program, the order of the icons on the start menu changes. Horrid,
horrid, horrid! >_<
(Can you tell I have that mis-feature turned off? Interestingly, if you
do that you get a menu rather like what Word has - the programs you
actually use show up, and the ones you don't are initially hidden, but
everything is always *in the same order*.)
> I think you have to do something when you wind up with so many options
> they no longer even fit on a menu. That's probably one reason MS has
> good help systems - you'd not find half the stuff if you couldn't search
> help for "where the H___ have you hidden the XYZ options in *this*
> version now???"
Yeah, well... M$ does like to rearrange menus just to make each version
of Word look "new", even though it actually contains exactly the same
functionallity.
> And I still miss the Smalltalk technique of bringing up the pop-up menu
> such that the previous thing you selected is selected again for you. :-)
I don't like that. It means you have to mentually "guess" which option
will be hilighted each time you use it. I'd rather have the options show
up a predictable distance from my mouse pointer...
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Darren New <dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
> The "new"
> start menu, that puts the programs you use all the time near the top,
A "recently used programs" list in some start menu is not the same
thing as an adaptive menu, where elements which should be fixed aren't.
A "recently used program" list is more akin go a "recent documents"
sub-menu, which is just fine.
> and the 2003-era Word menus, where they only show you options you've
> used but reveal everything if you hover for a bit, both seem to work
> nicely and without much confusion, once you figure out what's going on.
The problem is that I don't want to "hover for a bit" or make an extra
click to show the full menu. If I have used a menu a lot, I remember from
heart where those most used menu elements are, and selecting is usually
a question of click+drag+release. A menu which changes contents and doesn't
even show all the options and where the options I use change locations
completely defies this and is one of the most annoying things ever.
Do you know what I hate in Firefox? The damned changing context menu!
It drives me crazy. Whether or not the first element is "back" depends
on where you click! It's annoying as hell.
> And I still miss the Smalltalk technique of bringing up the pop-up menu
> such that the previous thing you selected is selected again for you. :-)
That could also become annoying if you are accustomed to click + drag a
certain amount + release, to select an option you use a lot.
--
- Warp
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Invisible wrote:
> The new-style start menu is just horrid. Each time you use a different
> program, the order of the icons on the start menu changes. Horrid,
> horrid, horrid! >_<
Heh. I like it. The programs I've been using most bubble to the top, and
when I finish something (like, if I've been doing a bunch of photo
editing or fixing videos or something and now I'm done with that
vacation's worth of media) I just clear out the list. I'll admit it took
me about a week to get used to it, but I like it.
Of course, since you *can* turn it off, it's rather even nicer.
> Yeah, well... M$ does like to rearrange menus just to make each version
> of Word look "new", even though it actually contains exactly the same
> functionallity.
Well, they usually add a bunch of stuff and rearrange things to be
easier, but they also change around the stuff they didn't change, which
is what bothers me.
> I don't like that. It means you have to mentually "guess" which option
> will be hilighted each time you use it.
Nah. It means if you do the same thing to ten different icons, it's a
single click, instead of
click.drag-the-right-distance.release.reposition-mouse-on-mousepad
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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>> http://www.bash.org/?106605 THIS might be true though! :-/
>
> I think they call it XBox LIVE. :-)
PWN3D!
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Warp wrote:
> You forgot one of the most braindead ideas that has ever come from
> Microsoft: Adaptive menus.
I actually liked the adaptive start menu. I could expand it if I needed
everything, or just leave it contracted for my most frequently used.
The XP way of having the MFU list is pretty convenient as well.
--
~Mike
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Warp wrote:
> The problem is that I don't want to "hover for a bit" or make an extra
> click to show the full menu.
You are aware you can turn this off, right? It's some click-box in the
options stuff.
> If I have used a menu a lot, I remember from
> heart where those most used menu elements are, and selecting is usually
> a question of click+drag+release. A menu which changes contents and doesn't
> even show all the options and where the options I use change locations
> completely defies this and is one of the most annoying things ever.
I'm assuming you're talking about Word or some such here? If not, which
are you speaking of? I've not been bothered by menus reordering
themselves, but maybe I haven't run into it. Things showing up and
disappearing, or different sets of menus being available depending on
what you're editing, yes. But not arbitrary reordering.
> Do you know what I hate in Firefox? The damned changing context menu!
> It drives me crazy. Whether or not the first element is "back" depends
> on where you click! It's annoying as hell.
That's kind of the point of a "context" menu, tho. :-)
>> And I still miss the Smalltalk technique of bringing up the pop-up menu
>> such that the previous thing you selected is selected again for you. :-)
>
> That could also become annoying if you are accustomed to click + drag a
> certain amount + release, to select an option you use a lot.
Sure, I suppose. I find that kind of menu always has my mouse sliding
off the edge of the desk, tho, when I'm doing something repetitive. I
guess if you're used to one way of working, another is going to annoy
one until one gets used to it. Sounds like you have better mousing
precision than I do. :-)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
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