Comments about Linux/Ubuntu from a former MS-programmer

[Eric Dunbar]

On 12/04/06, Lee Revell <rlrevell at joe-job.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-04-12 at 15:44 -0400, Eric Dunbar wrote:
> > Something like the mode change on maximise is an example of a bad GUI
> > design that is counter productive and CAN be removed without causing a
> > Windows user distress.
>
> No one answered my previous comment about this - if you eliminate mode
> change on maximize how do you prevent the user from accidentally
> grabbing the right edge of the window when using the scrollbar?  The
> only solution I can think of involves a different type of mode change
> (allow resize by grabbing any edge, except the one with the scrollbar)
>
> It seems like this might have been the reason for this design decision.

It's an ancient holdover from pre-historic days (certainly going back
to Win 3.1, perhaps even earlier). I'd be surprised if it was that
conscious a decision. And, yes, you're right it would make a lot of
sense to disable the window resize option from the right hand side of
a window.

Though, part of the whole problem is having the whole application
contained in a single window, menubar, windows and all. Unless there's
a resolution to that problem the mode change issue won't go away. It's
a great idea in principle (all-in-one-window), but the unused screen
edges in Windows really do hurt the OS's usability... the only screen
edges that appear to be used are the top and right and then only when
you maximise a window -- the top to close/restore/minimise a window
and the right to scroll a window. The Start menu and task bar don't
use the screen edges (at least in Windows 2000... do they in XP?).

PS You're probably familiar with the benefits of using screen edges
but just in case...

it's the screen wide "mile high" target -- you don't have to position
the mouse to select something at the screen edge. It allows you to
efficiently move your mouse around the screen.

This is nothing more than a theory but I've wondered if the reason MS
Windows never got around to using the screen edges properly is that
many of the their early users moved from DOS so they had started life
with an inefficient work paradigm (for most people) and weren't
particularly concerned with the quality of the GUI -- for them ANY GUI
was better than nothing since they knew the worst that computer
programmers could throw at them in CLUI (un)usability. So, this meant
that MS didn't actually have to bother making their GUI good. As long
as their GUI sort of worked it was good enough for the minions that
migrated from DOS.

[separate thought]

With the advent of larger screens in the world of Windows (and
GNOME/KDE... for some reason big screen have been the norm on the Mac
side of things but not in Windows... wonder why) the full-screen
paradigm/mode isn't particularly useful. If you've got a screen in
1600x1200 (as I do right now on a Windows computer as an experiment)
maximized window is quite ineffective (even at 1280x1024 there's a lot
of dead space).