> An example of good UI is the Macintosh designers' decision to put the > menubar at the top of the screen, not the top of a window, making it > MUCH easier to hit. Because it's at an edge, there's no chance of > overshooting it and having to backtrack. It effectively makes the > target infinitely tall -- instead of having to try to decelerate and > land the pointer in a 20-some pixel-high strip near the top of a > window, you can just slam the pointer up against the top of the screen > and it automatically stops there.
One downside: That would make it almost impossible to use my preferred window focus method: focus-follows-mouse. Not that Windows supports it well, anyway, but I use that all the time in X under Solaris and Linux. > In another message, The Fool mentioned Windows' consistent control-key > shortcuts. That was borrowed from the Macintosh Human Interface > Guidelines. And they got it wrong, too: the control key is often > located where it must be pressed with the *side* of the little finger, > where the Apple command-key is always located on either side of the > space bar, where it is operated by the thumb. This may seem like a > small thing, but I broke my little finger last year, and found that it > was constantly sore when using windows, but was able to heal when using > the Mac. But if you had a broken thumb, wouldn't it be just the opposite? ;-) _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
