[openbeos] Re: OBOS Poll: Multiple Monitor Support
- From: "Michael Phipps" <mphipps1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2002 23:38:19 -0500
>Actually I will comment further on this, because I think there's a broader
>principle. I remember a while back that the issue of themes came up for
>BeOS - some users were saying how fantastic themes would be, that sort of
>thing. That made me quite annoyed and here's why..
>
>There's a user interface principle that I follow, but can't site from
>anybody else :) That is, write the system so that it needs minimal
>configuration, and so the user *can't* spend endless hours tweaking, etc.
[snip]
>For this reason, I'm skeptical of suggestions to make things
>over-configurable when that energy could be put into writing drivers or
>improving the efficiency of core systems. Over configuration is the linux
>way of doing things, where using the operating system becomes a laborious
>game. I believe BeOS embodies a principle of simple elegance. The
>interface excludes things which arn't obvious to the user. It may be
>possible to implement these new features in a way that doesn't force
>itself on the user.
I have debated this with myself so many times my head hurts. :-)
I range from no skins, classic Be look only to everything 100% skinnable and
resizable. And everything in between. I can argue for and against about
anything.
There is no good answer. There will be people who want to skin their whole
OS to have leopard skin patterns. But Heaven forbid a normal person try to
use their computer. Then you have the whole issue of the handicapped. For
some people, these tiny scroll bars and all are hard to click on. But how
much should the end user be able to change?
If anyone has the magic answer, please let me know. :-)
>I don't want to rain on parades, moreso because I'm new here :) I may
>misunderstand the purpose of the list. If this is just brainstorming then
>I apologise. But if we're trying to form a list here of definitive stuff
>we're aiming for in R2, I'm inclined to argue against features which arn't
>core to advancing the operating system.
That, in some ways, is the best answer of all. :-) But there will be a group of
users that you can *not* attract without giving them certain things. Maybe that
is not a group that we care about, but I don't know that I would want to make
that
decision right now....
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