Dude, what planet are you on?? Does your text on you screen scroll from bottom to top? If you type cls, is your cursor at the bottom of the screen? When you go to write an email, do you start at the bottom and work up?
If so, then continue on, you will find no intelligent beings on this planet.
Seriously, on every computer I have dealt with (and this only goes back to the Commodore 64), text has always started at the top and went down.
Now, my question to the developers is: Do you want to make this user friendly or not? If you want to confuse the heck outta people, then listen to this guy. If you want to attract newbies (which I'm assuming as is the case since all this work was put in on something that the experts don't need), then I would suggest not confusing the newbies. BTW, anyone ever see NASA's countdown? Blast Off is not at the top. It counts down, then takes off.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Stodden [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2000 5:46 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 7 ISO V2 soon avalaible
On Sat, 05 Feb 2000, Guy T. Rice wrote:
> Ron Stodden wrote:
>
> > Install steps on the left are upside down - Configure X should be at
> > the top, Select Installation Class at the bottom. Progress is
> > conventionally displayed as left to right or upwards (Climbing a tree, the
> > path to heaven, etc.). so as better to conform to a traffic signal etaphor,
> > and conform to 1st quadrant geometry that every one is used to and
> > understands.
>
> Please please PLEASE do not do this! That would be extraordinarily
> confusing! Checklists are normally filled out top to bottom, same as the
> order English text is normally read in (left to right, top to bottom). And
> I'm not sure what he's talking about with the traffic signal thing; which
> traffic signals, GO is at the bottom, so if we're going to use a traffic
> signal metaphor, we need to get to the bottom before we're ready to GO (i.e.
> boot). I expect 98% of Mandrake users would find the checklist going from
> the bottom to the top, especially if readable labels are next to each item,
> to be extremely counter-intuitive. Ron is obviously in the other 2%. But
> as long as text labels are next to each item, and those text labels are
> written in English, they MUST go from top to bottom to obey standard English
> conventions (read from top to bottom).
Alas, but no. Software is a branch of engineering, not of literature.
A product of reality, not of fantasy. Installation of software on blank
hardware involves the installation of successive layers, each on top of, and
dependent upon, the one below. A good examplary metaphor is building a
house (or a car, or a bridge, or for that matter, a relationship) .
First you must establish the foundation, then build on top of that the
floor, and so on. And finally, the roof, at the top.
Would you erect the roof first? Then somehow build downwards?
Awareness of the layered structure of software is essential to understanding
and using Linux on your computer. Memory and disk maps are
conventionally drawn with address 000000 at the bottom, and filled up from
the bottom, just like a glass is filled with liquid or the way bricks are
organised into a wall.
Would you fill a glass somehow beginning at the top?
--
Regards,
Ron. [AU] - sent by Linux.
