I'm in on the side of hating too much configurability. When I'm being a user, often I want the developers to make my choices for me: that's what they're paid for, damnit!
Take OmniFocus. Incredibly powerful program, and it adapts to pretty much any workflow. This makes it really hard to get into. My problem, the problem for which I bought it, was that I didn't have a task management workflow. So I would have much preferred Omni's devs to say "In our app you do it this way. Learn this process, and things will be easier." If an app lets you work in whatever way you want, it's hard to know which way is "right", or most optimal, or whatever. There's a cost to every choice you add (like the multiple main windows one), because they all add up to make something where the user has to know what they want before they start. I'm not saying we shouldn't add any options or customisation. But the line I usually take when developing is to assume I'm not allowed _any_ options, and try to make the best case good for everyone. Then, whenever an option is truly needed, it has to really justify itself. For the record, I do think some of the things we've discussed need preferences (like the nested vs gmail-style threads). It's just useful to think from the perspective of making the one true workflow, and really polishing that. _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list List help: http://lists.ranchero.com/listinfo.cgi/email-init-ranchero.com
