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Re: Nice features, bad UI
by Willie Sippel on Wednesday 29/Sep/2004, @07:11
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Maybe it's hard for you to believe this, but amaroK has about the best GUI possible - better than almost any other KDE app. Maybe KDE should be more 'amaroKy' (whatever) as a whole! That would be better then adding bullsh*t like menubars or toolbars for every application (just to make _you_ feel at home), even if the program has only five menu items. Empty menus are disturbing, a waste of space and introduce unnecessary clutter.
BTW, there are applications that don't need to (and should not) follow standard interface guidelines, because they fulfill a special goal: music production apps, paint (that's why Gimp or Photoshop are bad), compositing (After Effects' GUI is really bad), 3D apps or - in this case - audio players... |
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Re: Nice features, bad UI
by MK on Wednesday 29/Sep/2004, @07:58
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"Maybe it's hard for you to believe this, but amaroK has about the best GUI possible - better than almost any other KDE app."
Not quite, as you can read that several people dislike amaroks UI. It might be the best UI for _you_ but this doesn't mean that it is the "best UI", especially if a couple of people stated exactly the opposite.
As I already suggested the developers should ask Aaron for his opinion and I'm sure he can give them some hints why amaroK is so confusing to use.
IMHO the general problem is that amaroK wants to be cool and exceptional and thus they try to make the UI non-standard (no menu bar, no toolbars, menu button bottom right and so on). It's o.k. for some audience, e.g. <18 years, but I am not sure this application should be a part of core KDE then. If you want to see a standard GUI, use JuK, which probably is too "boring" for the general amaroK audience.
"there are applications that don't need to (and should not) follow standard interface guidelines, because they fulfill a special goal:"
why should special applications not use a standard interface?
"[...] paint (that's why Gimp or Photoshop are bad)"
??? I really don't understand your line of reasoning here.
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Re: Nice features, bad UI
by Willie Sippel on Wednesday 29/Sep/2004, @08:52
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Well, and there are also quite a few people that love amaroK's UI...
You know, if the amaroK team wants to add a menu- and toolbar, I couldn't care less - as long as it's possible to remove them, as they are simply not needed. Why would anyone in their right mind want to add UI elements just to comply to some unwritten UI standard, even if they are completely useless?!?
And that has nothing to do with the audience's age, as I'm neither <18, nor a gamer, modder or geek...
"why should special applications not use a standard interface?"
Because a standard interface is just the smallest common denominator. It can't be perfect for every app, that's why all workflow-optimized professional applications use their own non-standard, workflow-centric interfaces. Take Softimage|XSI for example: the context menu is available by pressing ALT+RMB, because RMB is deselect (and MMB is toggle select). With Maya, the menubar is star-shaped (the context menu is also star-shaped) and accessible by holding spacebar. Houdini has the menu on TAB, with type-ahead-find to select the menu item. All those apps are professional 3D suites, all have a completely different interface and controls, and they all have a very fast workflow (with a steep learning curve) that you can't achieve following standard HIG's...
"??? I really don't understand your line of reasoning here. "
Photoshop is a consumer/ prosumer/ low-end professional application, with Gimp being a clone. The interface is designed to be usable by casual users without much learning, but the workflow is nothing to write home about. There are also professional paint applications like Mirage, Liberty, Amazon, Paintbox, Cyborg Paint etc - you need a while to get the uncommon design, but once you're used to it, you are much faster than any Photoshop user.
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Re: Nice features, bad UI
by Bellegarde Cedric on Wednesday 29/Sep/2004, @09:57
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>why should special applications not use a standard interface?
Because they don't need to use it?
Do you think kfind need to be removed because there is no toolbar/menubar?
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Re: Nice features, bad UI
by Andras Mantia on Thursday 30/Sep/2004, @11:58
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KFind is a dialog based application. It shouldn't have a menu (and if you look at the current styleguide you will see a case study exactly about some kind of find dialog). Yet a standard menu/toolbar in a not-dialog based application (like amaroK) should be present. You can remove them, move them, whatever you like. KDE allows it. But right now with amaroK you cannot move the toolbar, you cannot add a menubar. Some would like to have those and you can't say that they are wrong. There is no reason to limit the possibilities. You can be different in other ways as well.
Andras
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