On 2009-07-07, at 22:23, Joshua Juran wrote:
Sorry, but I come from a Mac background and consequently have no experience with this behavior or understanding of why I might desire it. Can someone explain why this is preferable?
So that you can have a small window containing something you're referring to in the foreground above the large window you're actively working on in the background. When I switched to Mac I spent months looking for a way to keep this capability, and I still miss it. No, hacks like stickies and dashboard and the like don't cut it.
Using a menu or selecting text doesn't screw around with window z- order.
Why is this important? And why aren't you using a global menu bar?
The global menu bar was a hack to allow the one button mouse to work. Every other window system in existence at the time used pop-up contextual menus exclusively. Many people who aren't used to the Mac (and its wannabe copy, Windows) prefer this, because it puts the most important operations right where the mouse is instead of a foot or more away at the top of the screen. And don't bloody quote "Fitts Law" to me, because the BEST place for a menu according to Fitts Law is right where the mouse already is. The top of the screen is a second- best alternative.
But in the Gnome world it does, and this makes me want to strangle kittens.
Can you point me to the research showing the effect this has on user efficiency, or failing that, at least a design document comparable to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for the Macintosh?
Apple's research was flawed and marketing-driven, and they only got the results they wanted because they were using the tiny Lisa and Mac screens of the time instead of Xerox' full page displays, and they violate their own HIG with wild abandon.
Or is this just an oral tradition passed on by those with their GUI well poisoned by X11,
No, my GUI well was "poisoned" by Xerox. You know, the people who invented the fucking Window-Icon-Mouse interface.
