tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post121185571493007995..comments2024-02-20T19:17:55.835+01:00Comments on TSDgeos' blog: ConsistencyAlbert Astals Cidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12001470108926138921noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-16980187552113772182010-01-26T09:47:33.484+01:002010-01-26T09:47:33.484+01:00XP is no longer supported by Windows and thus even...<i>XP is no longer supported by Windows and thus even if some people sold it. This is not Microsoft selling the products, but resellers willing to empty their stock.</i>.<br /><br />but that has nothing to do with this inconsistency.<br /><br />It's not like Microsoft is forced to let the window decorations to be inconsistent due to differences in APIs or whatever, they simply chose to make them inconsistent because they wanted to make Windows Live Messenger look the same on every Windows version, including the window decoration.<br /><br />Google Chrome is doing the same thing: even on Linux it uses its Vista-like window decorations, in stead of the window decorations of the window manager the user is using.whatevernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-81167421264555412172010-01-02T03:01:44.708+01:002010-01-02T03:01:44.708+01:00@Karellen, counterpoint fail? Maybe yours. Decorat...@Karellen, counterpoint fail? Maybe yours. Decorations is ok, but and the themes/styles? We are talking about consistency, and any Qt theme/style more sophisticated or complex, like Bespin, is bizarre when converted to GTK using that app to convert Qt style to GTK. Even Oxygen on OpenOffice and Firefox are inconsistency.<br /><br />No doubt, Windows is more consistency than Linux for the most apps.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-11885189320406242302010-01-01T20:33:26.356+01:002010-01-01T20:33:26.356+01:00@Alejandro Nova let's see if we are lucky :D A...@Alejandro Nova let's see if we are lucky :D And i'm in no way involved with the notebook design, but i'm sure the ones that are appreciate your comment :-)Albert Astals Cidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12001470108926138921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-37170445117413173932010-01-01T20:26:22.210+01:002010-01-01T20:26:22.210+01:00@All: 2 days ago, I replaced a Windows install wit...@All: 2 days ago, I replaced a Windows install with a UNR install. Target: Asus Eee 701 2G, and a girl who doesn't want to know anything about computers. Her Windows XP failed on her miserably, so I thought Linux was the choice.<br /><br />If I succeed with her computer, maybe Linux has something to do in the desktop after all. And Albert, I must say your netbook interface is great.Alejandro Novahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10956440879688454310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-58096579443899754932010-01-01T18:38:01.864+01:002010-01-01T18:38:01.864+01:00These inconsistencies may be out of date, but ther...These inconsistencies may be out of date, but thereis a lot more of these in other Windows versions, including seven. Some applications don't use standards widgets, some have not been updated for some time etc.<br /><br />Take the control panel : when opening on an item, it will sometimes open directly in the explorer window, sometimes open a new window, sometimes open a new window and directly select a tab of it. Sometimes the UI will be done in web style, using links etc, sometimes it will be more classical. Depends mostly of the time it was designed.<br /><br />However thereis a lot consistency problems on other platforms. MacOS X has probably the most consistent UI, while KDE is IMHO quite good for this. GNOME (which I use) however may have some work to do here, but at least you don't see applications using two completely different widget styles.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15493234634964775208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-42298973368804560782009-12-31T21:02:32.964+01:002009-12-31T21:02:32.964+01:00@Fri13 : What your user echantillon to tell this ?...@Fri13 : What your user echantillon to tell this ? Mine is having more than 60 users, and not closed family or related friends ...<br /><br />BTW, XP is no longer supported by Windows and thus even if some people sold it. This is not Microsoft selling the products, but resellers willing to empty their stock.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04674311021852908541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-81892085209318971442009-12-31T20:49:23.899+01:002009-12-31T20:49:23.899+01:00@ Fabrice
If watned, we can very well compare Win...@ Fabrice<br /><br />If watned, we can very well compare Windows XP and todays window decorations, desktop environments etc. Why? Because Windows XP is still being sold and used. The truth is, that MS has not got better in developing UI's on Vista or 7 when developing their own software. Look Live Messenger, Live Photo gallery, Visual Studio, Windows mediaplayer, MS Office, Explorer, Internet Explorer. They are all looking different and that is not good usability at all when your main application programs works too different ways.<br /><br />But when we compare MS to Apple, we can notice that Apple does follow the UI of their applications. They control that the application programs looks similar when using them. Same thing is on KDE and GNOME doing for their desktop environments and application programs. <br /><br />Throw a Nero, Photoshop and Lightroom in use on Windows 7 and you start again seeing similar problems as Windows XP has.<br /><br />And what comes to the users, the visuality DOES matter for them. It does not matter techsavy administrator who just want to solve the user problems and get away to other tasks. The users are there using applications and desktop all days long. Small things start affecting them very fast. Thats why Apple takes lots of care about the UI similarity because then the user feels that everything goes easier and snappier than on the environment what looks being build up from multiple different applications. Even the GTK+ filedialog is terrible usability issue when using KDE plasma-desktop for normal user because the dialog is totally different when compared to other apps.Fri13noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-90535974070621449702009-12-30T23:33:21.126+01:002009-12-30T23:33:21.126+01:00KDE has its own consistency issues though. In part...KDE has its own consistency issues though. In particular, Plasma insists on using its own widget (in the developer sense, e.g. tab bar) styles rather than Qt's. There's supposedly a Plasma theme hint to use the Qt style for Qt widgets inside plasmoids these days, but is there any Plasma theme actually using that? The common ones sure don't.Kevin Koflerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00136078113749660013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-34127276387699226432009-12-30T21:22:34.877+01:002009-12-30T21:22:34.877+01:00They have better things to do : rules the world :p...They have better things to do : rules the world :pWillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04674311021852908541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-65519197478612200022009-12-30T21:00:23.239+01:002009-12-30T21:00:23.239+01:00@Fabrice: You are reading too much between lines. ...@Fabrice: You are reading too much between lines. I'm not comparing anything to anything, forget i'm a KDE developer. Forget i'm a linux user. I'm just complaining the major player in the software world is not able to maintain look and feel in decorations in the *same* operating system of three programs they do themselves. PERIOD.Albert Astals Cidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12001470108926138921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-79638273855883578272009-12-30T20:48:38.545+01:002009-12-30T20:48:38.545+01:00@Albert Astals Cid : sure you are a desktop dev, b...@Albert Astals Cid : sure you are a desktop dev, but most people using your software are workstations users.<br />When the 80 employees of my company are using Linux, and the nearly 60 commercials are seeing Linux is use or are using it from time to time, I'm pretty sure that I do participate efficiently in Linux brand visibility.<br /><br />Now if you really want to compare against XP, then take a Linux distribution dating from 2002. Last but not least, try to make run on this distribution latests Firefox/OpenOffice/Acrobat versions, and most of your recent softwares like KDE 4/Digikam4, ... You will have a good time ...Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04674311021852908541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-85300273346237971762009-12-30T20:38:15.530+01:002009-12-30T20:38:15.530+01:00@Fabrice: I am a desktop developer.
@Anon: Window...@Fabrice: I am a desktop developer.<br /><br />@Anon: Windows XP is deployed in my workplace, a company that employs more than 400 IT professionals, it may be old and Microsoft might want to sell you newer versions, but companies are not using themAlbert Astals Cidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12001470108926138921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-79832572715169601942009-12-30T20:34:06.998+01:002009-12-30T20:34:06.998+01:00As already stated, Windows Vista and Windows 7 hav...As already stated, Windows Vista and Windows 7 have a more consitent decoration. The Command prompt for example uses the normal decoration and Office 2007 also looks fine under Vista/7.<br /><br />Ranting about Windows XP is as useless as using KDE 4.0 as reference for KDE 4.<br /><br />I think fabrice made valid points - most of them are not specific to sysadmins. And on top of that, a sysadmin usually is in contact with many USERS and can see their behaviour and the problems the may have.<br /><br />I would see you post as a rather useless complaint especially as it is not valid anymore.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-64386992019148052522009-12-30T20:24:10.387+01:002009-12-30T20:24:10.387+01:00@Albert Astals Cid : IMHO you should change your p...@Albert Astals Cid : IMHO you should change your point of view.<br />Linux can't succeed in the desktop, normal mass-consumer market. Linux can succeed only with controlled environment, this means :<br />- mobile market ( phone, tablet, .. )<br />- embedded market<br />- and last but not least ( where Linux distributions and Linux consulting societies do earn money ) : workstations and server market.<br /><br />The big Linux success are company migrations to Linux.<br />the LHC is using Linux on their desktop and to do Grid computing : this is workstation and server market.<br /><br />Sorry, but few "normal" end-users buy Linux computers and keep using them.<br /><br />We, the sysadmins, make true Linux success and breakthrough against Microsoft.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04674311021852908541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-34873927721104540652009-12-30T19:34:29.490+01:002009-12-30T19:34:29.490+01:00@Fabrice: Do you undertand that doing this huge ra...@Fabrice: Do you undertand that doing this huge rant here is worthless, right? Also you understand sysadmins are like 0.0000000001% of computer users, right?Albert Astals Cidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12001470108926138921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-2764090285382572732009-12-30T14:29:38.626+01:002009-12-30T14:29:38.626+01:00you know, it is fakin microsoft, they do not give ...you know, it is fakin microsoft, they do not give a s*it, just as long as it makes money and spyes on it's users....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-70376863035179696692009-12-30T10:57:15.273+01:002009-12-30T10:57:15.273+01:00I don't care about GTK and Qt look & feel ...I don't care about GTK and Qt look & feel consistency : useless debate.<br />I'd rather have a stable, working system and last but not least a system that can be administrate/managed. I'm a sysadmin, and all my workstations and servers are running Linux ( nearly 70 computers ).<br />So when :<br />- /home on NFS support is not optimal ( sqlite usage, akonadi, ... ) : I do care<br />- when applications have regressions ( printing support ) : I do care<br />- when applications are slow or slower under Linux than under Windows ( openoffice, PDF printing with okular vs acroread, Kmail 3 vs Kmail 4 ) : I do care<br />- when applications crashes ( plasma ) : i do care<br />- when french accentuated characters are not correctly handled : i do care<br />- when sound is not working correctly ( pulseaudio + pulseaudio support in phonon ) : i do care<br />- when setting a wireless connection may be buggy ( unstable drivers ) : i do care<br />- when using a video-projector ( for presentations/meetings ) is not evident for the users and easy : i do care<br /><br />So the UI look & feel is somewhat useless. I just want something that look mostly good, is acceptable, with a good usability. Good wallpapers ? most users just put their childrens photo as desktop background, and put a lot of icons on the desktops. Good theme ? most of the time, they don't care. Consistency ? they don't care : they just want to be able to distinguish closed and minimize buttons.<br /><br />The only time my users were impressed by something visual was the "present windows" effects of kwin ( left upper corner ) which shows all windows at once as they find it useful.<br />Plasmoïds ? they don't use them. i trained them to use the folder view to have faster access to services directories, but they are not using them most of the time, they'd rather create shortcut.<br />When we switch from KDE 3 to KDE 4, they do only care about the fact that everything was still working as expected.<br /><br />So endless debates about windows decoration consistency make me laugh hard. I'm giving lessons to futur sysadmin, and I do animate the Linux sessions, and theses guys care more about the possibility to manage Linux, ease of administration, ability to lockdown the desktop, administration tools, and coherence between the different distributions.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04674311021852908541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-9488908851919756422009-12-30T10:21:23.082+01:002009-12-30T10:21:23.082+01:00@Fabrice: hope that for *your* own consistency you...@Fabrice: hope that for *your* own consistency you weren't one of those bashing cause QT and GTK looked differently years ago (cause nowadays is simply no true)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-13644423844567294192009-12-30T06:07:54.449+01:002009-12-30T06:07:54.449+01:00Win7 is just as bad as this, not just the decorati...Win7 is just as bad as this, not just the decoration theme but also things like the placement of menubarAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-51833568584478152302009-12-30T01:44:10.458+01:002009-12-30T01:44:10.458+01:00true, but what does that have to do with the windo...true, but what does that have to do with the window decoration?<br /><br />as i pointed out, the application 'windows live messenger' surpresses the default XP window decoration in favor of its own vista look. There is no technical reason or limitation for that application to not use the xp window decorations.<br /><br />Same with qt1/qt2/qt3: although the widgets of the applications will look different, the window decorations remain the same.whatevernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-20531523884120105112009-12-30T01:32:30.230+01:002009-12-30T01:32:30.230+01:00And please note that each of thses applications ar...And please note that each of thses applications are using each time a different toolkit/API. It's like having 1 application with Qt1, one wityh Qt2, one with Qt3, and another with Qt4Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04674311021852908541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-27902638424947745972009-12-30T01:22:52.951+01:002009-12-30T01:22:52.951+01:00"users don't care about consistency ...&q..."<i>users don't care about consistency ...</i>".<br /><br />depends on the type of user.<br /><br />I know users that get confused by even the smallest inconsistency between application versions etc.whatevernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-55505469230909511022009-12-30T01:20:54.983+01:002009-12-30T01:20:54.983+01:00That doesn't happen on Windows Vista or 7.
No...<i>That doesn't happen on Windows Vista or 7</i>.<br /><br />Not yet.<br /><br />But lets see what the future brings, when Microsoft comes with a new Windows version with a new look....whatevernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-60406159026447088632009-12-30T01:19:09.613+01:002009-12-30T01:19:09.613+01:00" let's talk about the consistence Qt mai..."<i> let's talk about the consistence Qt maintains with GTK.</i>"<br /> <br />or even better, checkout the consistence of gtk with any other windows application. <br /><br />On KDE, at least the window decoration remains consistent.<br /><br />On Windows, even that is not guaranteed..whatevernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7523589.post-30461646238087864502009-12-30T01:17:12.042+01:002009-12-30T01:17:12.042+01:00Sorry ... but users don't care about consisten...Sorry ... but users don't care about consistency ...<br />A close button is a close button, and thus whenever the button is red, blue with a red corner or blackWillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04674311021852908541noreply@blogger.com