I was Googling around looking for articles about MacOS's universal menubar (related to the thread about it here), when I ran in to these websites:

http://www.xvsxp.com/interface/
http://www.macvswindows.com/index.php?t ... omparisons

Those provide pretty detailed comparisons between MacOS and Windows XP/Vista. They are pretty good at showing the differences between the approaches taken by the two systems and rationale as to why they are the way they are.

Websites like that are a good tool in finding out what we could adapt/discard from the two systems.

The Mac OSX desktop is shiny and full of eye-candy. And much of the eye-candy is not just pretty, but adds to usability. But don't get distracted by the it, because underneath the OSX desktop is quite plain. By design it is a "dumbed down" interface.

Remove the pretty eye candy and give everything plain Motif-ish styling. Suddenly it's not so usable.

Here's one, the window manager: it's very basic. Even Blackbox offers more functionality. Just simple stuff like snap-to windows and edge resistance would improve things. And a bigger border to resize windows with. And launching apps: why is there no application menu? And while I do understand that OSX works with multi-button mice, why does Apple continue to promote the one-button mouse that needs keyboard metakeys for full functionality?

The smart stuff? Inactive palettes. Consistency. Visual cues.

Yeah, some of this stuff Windows lacks as well. But we aren't Windows. KDE should be able to do better. KDE can take the smart stuff from OSX, but it needs to leave the dumb stuff behind.

Brandybuck wrote:The Mac OSX desktop is shiny and full of eye-candy. And much of the eye-candy is not just pretty, but adds to usability. But don't get distracted by the it, because underneath the OSX desktop is quite plain. By design it is a "dumbed down" interface.

Remove the pretty eye candy and give everything plain Motif-ish styling. Suddenly it's not so usable.

Here's one, the window manager: it's very basic. Even Blackbox offers more functionality. Just simple stuff like snap-to windows and edge resistance would improve things. And a bigger border to resize windows with. And launching apps: why is there no application menu? And while I do understand that OSX works with multi-button mice, why does Apple continue to promote the one-button mouse that needs keyboard metakeys for full functionality?

The smart stuff? Inactive palettes. Consistency. Visual cues.

Yeah, some of this stuff Windows lacks as well. But we aren't Windows. KDE should be able to do better. KDE can take the smart stuff from OSX, but it needs to leave the dumb stuff behind.

KDE needs to continue it's tradition of cherrypicking from other Desktop Environments, what we really should aviod is ending up like GNOME which really suffers from dumbing down.

Brandybuck wrote:The Mac OSX desktop is shiny and full of eye-candy. And much of the eye-candy is not just pretty, but adds to usability. But don't get distracted by the it, because underneath the OSX desktop is quite plain. By design it is a "dumbed down" interface.

I'm not so sure as to it being "dumbed down". Yes, it's missing some extreme tweakability of KDE and other desktops, but that doesn't really get in to the way of getting things done.

"Dumbed down" can mean that the UI is simple. And simplicity is a good thing, assuming it does not affect functionality. And even then the dumbed down UI might actually enable more features, since the features that are there are more accessible, as opposed to having a compicated UI where features are not accessible.

Here's one, the window manager: it's very basic.

Yep, it is. Kwin is way ahead of OS X winmanager.

And launching apps: why is there no application menu?

Probably because it doesn't really need one? And you do have a list of all the installed app, it the Applications-folder. So you can replicate a application-menu by dragging the apps-folder to the Dock.

And while I do understand that OSX works with multi-button mice, why does Apple continue to promote the one-button mouse that needs keyboard metakeys for full functionality?

I think that because it in a way enforces developers to design UI's that are usable without having to rely on context-menus. That said, the "full functionality" does not require a metakey. Desktops ship with multibutton mouse, and you can right-click on the laptops by having two fingers on the trackpad. Yes, it does work.

Yeah, some of this stuff Windows lacks as well. But we aren't Windows. KDE should be able to do better. KDE can take the smart stuff from OSX, but it needs to leave the dumb stuff behind.

I agree 100%. But the point oif this thread is not "here's why OS X sucks".

Janne wrote:"Dumbed down" can mean that the UI is simple. And simplicity is a good thing, assuming it does not affect functionality.

Unfortunately a lot of simplicity does affect functionality. Streamlining is good, lobotomizing is bad. For an example, consider some of the earlier GNOME 2x releases.

Janne wrote:Probably because it doesn't really need one? And you do have a list of all the installed app, it the Applications-folder. So you can replicate a application-menu by dragging the apps-folder to the Dock.

With the classic KDE root menu (not Kickoff), I can launch most application with two mouse clicks, and the remainder with three. With Finder I have a minimum of three mouse clicks, four for utilities, and six for developer tools. The apps are harder to find because they aren't categorized.

I could drag stuff to the dock. In fact, last weekend I saw a guy with a few dozen icons on his dock, and a dozen more on his desktop. But I don't consider that usable.

I've got a third party app called "xmenu" that puts a tiny app menu in the corner of my universal menu. It's simple, unobtrusive, and the Finder is still there for those that hate menus.

Janne wrote:I agree 100%. But the point oif this thread is not "here's why OS X sucks".

True. I'm just pointing out some stuff that I think KDE shouldn't adopt as default. The stuff that it should adopt are the wonderful visual cues that Mac OSX provides.

Brandybuck wrote:
Unfortunately a lot of simplicity does affect functionality. Streamlining is good, lobotomizing is bad. For an example, consider some of the earlier GNOME 2x releases.

Of course the simplification can be done wrong. Early GNONME 2.x-releases are a good example of that. But I can't really see OS X being in that category.

With the classic KDE root menu (not Kickoff), I can launch most application with two mouse clicks, and the remainder with three. With Finder I have a minimum of three mouse clicks, four for utilities, and six for developer tools.

Usually you use just a handful of apps. If you are constantly opening certain apps, then surely you would put them in the dock? If you put them in the dock, you can launch them with a single click. If you put the apps-folder in the dock, you can launch most apps in your system (that is, the apps in the apps-folder) with a single click. Or you could use Spotlight to launch apps.

First think I did in KDE was to remove the Kickoff-icon from the panel. Launching apps via the keyboard is a lot faster, so I just Krunner for that.

I could drag stuff to the dock. In fact, last weekend I saw a guy with a few dozen icons on his dock, and a dozen more on his desktop. But I don't consider that usable.

You don't have to have dozens of icons in the dock. Put the handful of most used apps there, and then you could do what I did: I created a folder called "Productivity", put apps I use occasionally in there, and put that folder in the dock. With that setup I notice that 98% of the time, I have no need to go outside the dock, and the dock is manageable. That said, I don't even use Dock anymore really, since I launch my apps with Quicksilver.

I've got a third party app called "xmenu" that puts a tiny app menu in the corner of my universal menu. It's simple, unobtrusive, and the Finder is still there for those that hate menus.

True. I'm just pointing out some stuff that I think KDE shouldn't adopt as default. The stuff that it should adopt are the wonderful visual cues that Mac OSX provides.

My suggestion is not to talk of drastic changes like "should the taskbar be replaced with the Dock?" (answer to that is "NO!"), but the "little things" that are around the UI. And this isn't just about OS X, this is about Windows as well.

Janne wrote:If you put the apps-folder in the dock, you can launch most apps in your system (that is, the apps in the apps-folder) with a single click. Or you could use Spotlight to launch apps.

That's a Leopard feature I think. I'm still on Tiger because I don't think my aging PPC iBook could handle Leopard.

Brandybuck wrote:

Janne wrote:If you put the apps-folder in the dock, you can launch most apps in your system (that is, the apps in the apps-folder) with a single click. Or you could use Spotlight to launch apps.

That's a Leopard feature I think. I'm still on Tiger because I don't think my aging PPC iBook could handle Leopard.

Are you sure? Most of the macs at my school run Panther, and I currently have my Applications folder dragged to the right side of the dock. It works great, but you have to press and hold on the icon, or else it will just open it up in Finder.

The only thing new to Leopard are the stacks, which, for the Applications folder, do not work well. Thankfully, you are able to change them to a regular menu instead.

Cool! I didn't know you could do that. Minus half a point to Apple for lack of discoverability.

Yeah, I've read the official mac ui description for Panther and Tiger, and nowhere is it mentioned that you can click and hold a folder on the dock to get a menu. And its not the kind of thing you'd think of, especially as otherwise, putting a folder on the dock is practically useless... Kind of kludgey though.

KWin looks to be shaping up to be much better than the OSX window manager, (not a very difficult feat) I've always found window management in Aqua kind of aqua-rd :P I mean, I thought that the exposé was cool, and Leopard now has multiple desktops (totally ripped off, with no mention that they were already standard on most other high profile *nix DE's)

Something that always bugged me about the dock is that they are trying to make it flexible, but it really isn't. Like putting the dashboard icon on it, or folder views. They're practically indistinguishable from the launchers! No spacing or format change. Another thing is that once you've launched an application, your launcher is gone.

What can KDE learn from Windows? It has already "borrowed" a lot, and innovated some, and I guess, now, the main lesson is: don't be static, but make sure to have a kick*** set of defaults. (This, of course, was learned from Windows' faults)

From Mac: Make sure things are distinguishable. If you can't distinguish interface elements without prior knowledge, than you've made mistake.

Oh, and from windows: people don't like intrusive interfaces. People do like easy to access options whenever it makes sense.

Brandybuck wrote:Cool! I didn't know you could do that. Minus half a point to Apple for lack of discoverability.

Yeah, you can actually press and hold any item in the dock to get a menu. If its a folder, you will get a list of the items inside. If you do it to the trash, you will get a menu to open the trash or empty it. You can also do it to applications to get a menu which will let you close an application or even select which window you want from that app. There may be more features, but I don't have a mac sitting in front of me right now, and may not remember every detail about it.

EDIT: This may explain some more of the functionally: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2307