[530] in Athena User Interface
Re: minutes of 14dec2000 micromeeting
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (t. belton)
Mon Dec 18 15:50:56 2000
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 15:50:53 -0500 (EST)
From: "t. belton" <tbelton@MIT.EDU>
To: Richard Tibbetts <tibbetts@mit.edu>
cc: "Susan B. Jones" <sbjones@mit.edu>, "andrew m. boardman" <amb@mit.edu>,
<aui@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <200012151913.OAA00916@multics.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.30L.0012181543320.13247-100000@ten-thousand-dollar-bill.mit.edu>
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I suppose so, but I think you overstate as much as I understate :) I mean,
if you move the "window close" button from one side to another, it's more
of an appearance change than anything else ... now, if the windows in that
theme had NO close button, I'd consider that a dramatic functional change.
None of the sawfish themes we have now strike me as more than cosmetic
differences. I haven't explored the GNOME themes as much, but they, too,
mostly seem to be appearance changes.
On the other hand, it's entirely possible that I'm being too jaded. I had
someone come try to use my machine while in the microGUI theme and have
trouble manipulating windows because the buttons weren't in a location or
order he was accustomed to. I move between OSes many times a day and I
think I just stopped noticing that stuff, just like I no longer notice
that on my Mac I click the top left corner to close, and on my Windows
machine it's the top right. [shrug] One man's "cosmetic" is another man's
"functional."
None of this is particularly germane, nor am I disagreeing exactly, just
sorta thinking aloud.
-Todd
On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Richard Tibbetts wrote:
> Delurking to correct a possible misconception:
>
> A theme is not just a change of appearance, it is often a dramatic
> change in functionality. For instance by only changing the theme one
> can make sawfish look *and feel* like MacOS or Windows. Themes not
> only change what the frames, titlebars and titlebar buttons look like,
> they also change what they do, often introducing or removing
> significant functionality.
>
> Its possible everyone was clear on that, but I thought I would make
> sure. When choosing a default theme aestetics should really be a
> secondary consideration, after easy to understand functionality. Many
> (most) sawfish themes have so many different ways to do things that
> the user can easily be confused (e.g. "The window is gone. Did I unmap
> it, window shade it, iconify it, move it to another desktop, or
> something else?").
