>> Yes, the interface is quite usable, and I don't want to end >> up with another 'pretty' but unfunctional product (not much >> of a risk of that from Ed, I suspect!). But I do think that >> Vuescan could use a *bit* of a facelift.
I think people are forgetting that the app is a cross-platform one, for Mac, Windows and Unix. Having done various cross-platform development myself (including an app which ran on both the Mac and Windows) I know precisely how much of a pain it is to write any sort of GUI which will work on two (or more) different Windowing environments. I'm presuming that Ed is using a single set of cross-platform code, which explains the simplicity of the interface. Pretty and poncy UI features are totally impractical to code for all three environments. In actual fact, I like the simplistic interface in VS - there's little or no clutter and for the function I use it for (large numbers of batch scans) it's pretty much perfect. Other than the auto-frame-offset thing I keep whinging about (!) it's just about right for what I need - tarting up the GUI is more likely to spoil the app than improve it, particularly as individuals perceptions of what a good GUI is made up of can be totally subjective, especially where multiple environments are involved. Mark PS: As many of you will have gathered from this post, I'm actually a software developer myself. Without plugging too blatantly you might be interested in the software I've written - it's an offline browser which allows you to download whole websites and save copies of them to your hard disk - particularly useful for viewing online galleries without needing an active web connection. The software (Windows-only, I'm afraid) is FREE, and can be downloaded from www.webreaper.net :-)