users navigate flat UIs 22% more slowly

[RS Wood]

Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend needs
to die in a fire. ("design for the sake of design.") I'm not a huge
fan of Windows software, but Windows XP UI was perfectly usable, I
thought, and it's gotten worse since then. On a recent Win10 install I
found the calculator app (an extremely flat design) to be one of the
ugliest things I've seen in software: just about as bad as Motif stuff
from early Unix GUI days (which was excoriated for its ugliness).
Screw Win for inventing it and Apple for making the rest of the world
copy it.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/flat_uis_designs_are_22_per_cent_slower_official/

//--clip
The mania is credited to Microsoft with its minimalistic Zune player,
an iPod clone, which was developed into the Windows Phone Series UX,
which in turn became the design for Windows from Windows 8 in 2012
onwards. But Steve Jobs is also to blame. The typography-besotted Apple
founder was fascinated by WP's "magazine-style" Metro design, and it
was posthumously incorporated into iOS7 in 2013. Once blessed by Apple,
flat designs spread to electronic programme guides on telly, games
consoles and even car interfaces. And of course web sites.

Flat designs looked "cleaner" and more "modern" (Microsoft's subsequent
portmanteau term for its Metro design), but there was a price to pay.

The consequence is that users find navigation harder, and so spend more
time on a page. Now research by the Nielsen Norman Group has measured
by how much. The company wired up 71 users, and gave them nine sites to
use, tracking their eye movement and recording the time spent on
content.

"On average participants spent 22 per cent more time (i.e. slower task
performance) looking at the pages with weak signifiers," the firm
notes. Why would that be? Users were looking for clues how to navigate.
"The average number of fixations was significantly higher on the
weak-signifier versions than the strong-signifier versions. On average,
people had 25 per cent more fixations on the pages with weak
signifiers."

The firm dispenses with the counter-argument that users were "more
engaged" with the page.

"Since this experiment used targeted findability tasks, more time and
effort spent looking around the page are not good. These findings don't
mean that users were more 'engaged' with the pages. Instead, they
suggest that participants struggled to locate the element they wanted,
or weren't confident when they first saw it."
//--clip

[Ant]

I hate flat GUIs. :(

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend needs
to die in a fire. ("design for the sake of design.") I'm not a huge
fan of Windows software, but Windows XP UI was perfectly usable, I
thought, and it's gotten worse since then. On a recent Win10 install I
found the calculator app (an extremely flat design) to be one of the
ugliest things I've seen in software: just about as bad as Motif stuff
from early Unix GUI days (which was excoriated for its ugliness).
Screw Win for inventing it and Apple for making the rest of the world
copy it.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/flat_uis_designs_are_22_per_cent_slower_official/
//--clip
The mania is credited to Microsoft with its minimalistic Zune player,
an iPod clone, which was developed into the Windows Phone Series UX,
which in turn became the design for Windows from Windows 8 in 2012
onwards. But Steve Jobs is also to blame. The typography-besotted Apple
founder was fascinated by WP's "magazine-style" Metro design, and it
was posthumously incorporated into iOS7 in 2013. Once blessed by Apple,
flat designs spread to electronic programme guides on telly, games
consoles and even car interfaces. And of course web sites.
Flat designs looked "cleaner" and more "modern" (Microsoft's subsequent
portmanteau term for its Metro design), but there was a price to pay.
The consequence is that users find navigation harder, and so spend more
time on a page. Now research by the Nielsen Norman Group has measured
by how much. The company wired up 71 users, and gave them nine sites to
use, tracking their eye movement and recording the time spent on
content.
"On average participants spent 22 per cent more time (i.e. slower task
performance) looking at the pages with weak signifiers," the firm
notes. Why would that be? Users were looking for clues how to navigate.
"The average number of fixations was significantly higher on the
weak-signifier versions than the strong-signifier versions. On average,
people had 25 per cent more fixations on the pages with weak
signifiers."
The firm dispenses with the counter-argument that users were "more
engaged" with the page.
"Since this experiment used targeted findability tasks, more time and
effort spent looking around the page are not good. These findings don't
mean that users were more 'engaged' with the pages. Instead, they
suggest that participants struggled to locate the element they wanted,
or weren't confident when they first saw it."
//--clip

--
Quote of the Week: "Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which
will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates
of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants
and the canopy of treetops." --Maya Angelou (b. 1928) American writer
and entertainer
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail privately. If credit-
( ) ing, then please kindly use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.

[Huge]

Post by Ant
I hate flat GUIs. :(

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend needs
to die in a fire.

[49 lines snipped]

I hate top posters who don't trim their quoted text.

[Johnny B Good]

Post by Huge

Post by Ant
I hate flat GUIs. :(

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend
needs to die in a fire.

[49 lines snipped]
I hate top posters who don't trim their quoted text.

AoL!

[Mike Spencer]

Post by Ant
I hate flat GUIs. :(

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend needs
to die in a fire.

Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.

What's a flat GUI and what's the (lumpy?) alternative?

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.
What's a flat GUI and what's the (lumpy?) alternative?

I didn't know that either so I had to look it up:

<URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_design>

I'm not much smarter even after reading the article, but it appears to
refer to the principle of removing visual cues such as shading, framing
and ornamenting. It is all the rage on cell phones and tables, and it
has spread to desktop GUIs as well.

I'm not much bothered by it because I use LXDE. I switched when I no
longer knew how to operate Gnome.

Not sure if it is part of "flat" but the one of the most annoying DE
fads is applications taking up the whole screen. It seems today's
"windowing system" is one where you need a separate physical screen for
each application.


Marko

[Rich]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.
What's a flat GUI and what's the (lumpy?) alternative?

<URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_design>
I'm not much smarter even after reading the article, but it appears to
refer to the principle of removing visual cues such as shading, framing
and ornamenting. It is all the rage on cell phones and tables, and it
has spread to desktop GUIs as well.
I'm not much bothered by it because I use LXDE. I switched when I no
longer knew how to operate Gnome.
Not sure if it is part of "flat" but the one of the most annoying DE
fads is applications taking up the whole screen. It seems today's
"windowing system" is one where you need a separate physical screen for
each application.

If you have the opportunity to observe others using their desktop
computers you will see that a huge percentage of non-technical users
operate their desktop computers (with accompanying 22, 23, 25, 27 inch
monitors) in "tablet mode" where if they actually "multitask" [1] then
each of the two or more applications they have open are all operating
in "maximized" mode.

This is *very* common in the mswin world, where every running program
has a maximized window and the windows task bar is little more than a
"bring this to the top" button bar for these individuals.

If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.


[1] Sadly, in 2017, with Intel I7 and/or AMD desktop CPU's that are
orders of magnitude more powerful than even the most expensive
super-computers of twenty years ago, with monitors that provide a
surface that is gigantic compared to twenty years ago, and default RAM
sizes that are huge, a large percentage of the non-technical computer
user crowd simply runs only one program at a time. Of course, since
their most common computer usage is media consumption (watch netflix
movie, watch amz prime show, watch facebook feed) they are only barely
"using" their computer in the first place.

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.

A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window by
clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner. LXDE allows that (well,
actually it's Openbox).

Unfortunately, there are obnoxious applications like Evince that take
over the task of decorating their own windows and fail to obey the
window manager settings.


Marko

[Huge]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window by
clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner.

BURN THE HERETIC!!!!! :o)

[Bob Eager]

Post by Huge

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window
by clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner.

BURN THE HERETIC!!!!! :o)

Surely it's OK if it's a double click. I hope it is.

[Paul Sture]

Post by Huge

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window by
clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner.

BURN THE HERETIC!!!!! :o)

For those of us who read from top to bottom and left to right, it's
where we start reading, so is a logical place for it.

[Huge]

Post by Paul Sture

Post by Huge

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window by
clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner.

BURN THE HERETIC!!!!! :o)

For those of us who read from top to bottom and left to right, it's
where we start reading, so is a logical place for it.

By that reasoning, given that you're closing a window and have therefore
finished with it, the button should be in the bottom right-hand corner ...

(Seriously, though, it's a religious issue. I use machines with both
and got used to it very quickly.)

[The Real Bev]

Post by Huge

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.

fvwm95 here -- based on fvwm2 but with win95-like alterations. It was
the most completely pre-configured window manager when I started using
linux (sheer laziness), and I see no reason to change.

Post by Huge

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window by
clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner.

BURN THE HERETIC!!!!! :o)

The UPPER RIGHT-HAND CORNER is the proper place, everyone knows that.
The upper left corner is also a possibility, but requires two clicks.
TWO CLICKS. That's just wrong.

The flat stuff is pure crap. I have a 27" monitor. I want lots of
windows and lots of VISIBLE buttons and visible lists and LOTS of
visible text. The idea of wasting a whole screen for half a dozen items
with sub- and sub-sub- and sub-sub-sub-menus which require you to guess
where some asshole decided to put something is maddening. And pretty
counts a lot. Colors, 3-D, shading, fonts etc. should be MY choice.

Websites increasingly assume tiny phone screens, which is annoying to
people with actual computers :-(

BUT some 64-bit programs (or 32-bit, perhaps, running under 64-bit
slackware) don't have the three boxes in the upper right corner -- you
have to close them from the 'file' (or equivalent) menu, and some are
unresizable under fvwm95. Annoying, but not sufficiently annoying that
I'm willing to switch to fvwm2. If I'm going to spend hours every day
looking at a screen, cosmetics matter!

My Firefox(52) and Thunderbird(38) installations are so heavily
personalized that they're not even recognizable as the same programs as
the modern versions to which I'm NOT going to update.

[Bob Eager]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window by
clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner. LXDE allows that (well,
actually it's Openbox).

I hope you mean double click!

I used LXDE until recently. It seems to be showing signs of neglect, and
there are various iconsistencies in the way it handles desktop entries
etc. That finally convinced me to leave.

I'm now a very happy XFCE user.

[Paul Sture]

Post by Bob Eager

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window by
clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner. LXDE allows that (well,
actually it's Openbox).

I hope you mean double click!
I used LXDE until recently. It seems to be showing signs of neglect, and
there are various iconsistencies in the way it handles desktop entries
etc. That finally convinced me to leave.
I'm now a very happy XFCE user.

I think it was Gnome 3 that persuaded me to stick with XFCE. My
requirements are fairly simple: I don't want to spend hours customising
the GUI after I've either installed a new system or created a new
username to work with.

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Bob Eager

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window
by clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner. LXDE allows that (well,
actually it's Openbox).

I hope you mean double click!

No, I mean single click.

The cross title bar icon was moved from left to right by Win95 IIRC. So
next to each other, you have an icon that maximizes the window and an
icon that destroys it.

The original location was the upper left-hand corner. For example, see:

<URL: Loading Image...>

<URL: http://info-coach.fr/atari/software/st-projects/_big/html/gem_w
in.jpg>

I chose to leave the Window Menu in the very corner:

NCLIM

or:

+---+---+------------------------------------------+---+---+
| % | X | Your title here | _ | # |
+---+---+------------------------------------------+---+---+
| |


Marko

[Bob Eager]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Bob Eager

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window
by clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner. LXDE allows that (well,
actually it's Openbox).

I hope you mean double click!

No, I mean single click.
The cross title bar icon was moved from left to right by Win95 IIRC.

No, Win 95 *introduced* it. Before that, there wasn't one. You had to
double click on top left.

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Bob Eager
No, Win 95 *introduced* it. Before that, there wasn't one. You had to
double click on top left.

The symbol might not have been a cross, but there definitely was a close
button as the links I included in my posting demonstrated.


Marko

[Bob Eager]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Bob Eager
No, Win 95 *introduced* it. Before that, there wasn't one. You had to
double click on top left.

The symbol might not have been a cross, but there definitely was a close
button as the links I included in my posting demonstrated.

But you showed GEM and Mac, not Windows, as I recall.

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Bob Eager

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Bob Eager
No, Win 95 *introduced* it. Before that, there wasn't one. You had to
double click on top left.

The symbol might not have been a cross, but there definitely was a close
button as the links I included in my posting demonstrated.

But you showed GEM and Mac, not Windows, as I recall.

What's your point? I only said it was Win95 that first put maximize and
close next to each other. I remember how atrocious the idea seemed when
it came out.

Reminds me of the old joke:

<URL: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/jokes/god-the-engineer/80431332/>


Marko

[Johnny B Good]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Bob Eager

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Bob Eager
No, Win 95 *introduced* it. Before that, there wasn't one. You had to
double click on top left.

The symbol might not have been a cross, but there definitely was a
close button as the links I included in my posting demonstrated.

But you showed GEM and Mac, not Windows, as I recall.

What's your point? I only said it was Win95 that first put maximize and
close next to each other. I remember how atrocious the idea seemed when
it came out.
<URL: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/jokes/god-the-engineer/80431332/>

That joke has to predate the internet. In any case, they're all wrong.
God would be more of an electro-mechanical communications design engineer
of the early to mid 20th century period if he was any sort of engineer at
all.

You only have to look at the circuitry in telephone handsets of the day
and that of the Strowger based kit in telephone exchanges to see that
very few of the discreet components existed to serve only a single
function in telephone instrument or exchange switch circuitry, a
situation that mimics the economy of design in complex biological
lifeforms alluded to by that civil engineer. :-)

[Rich]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Bob Eager

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window
by clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner. LXDE allows that (well,
actually it's Openbox).

I hope you mean double click!

No, I mean single click.
The cross title bar icon was moved from left to right by Win95 IIRC. So
next to each other, you have an icon that maximizes the window and an
icon that destroys it.
<URL: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f_GBeKVijWQ/maxresdefault.jpg>
<URL: http://info-coach.fr/atari/software/st-projects/_big/html/gem_w
in.jpg>

Those are early Mac images. Early Mac's had the "close" separated from
the other controls.

Then Win moved them together into the top right, and Mac moved them
together into the top left.

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Rich

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
<URL: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f_GBeKVijWQ/maxresdefault.jpg>
<URL: http://info-coach.fr/atari/software/st-projects/_big/html/gem_w
in.jpg>

Those are early Mac images. Early Mac's had the "close" separated from
the other controls.

Only one of them was from a Mac. The other one was from Atari ST. Amiga
seems to have been similar:

<URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b3/Amiga_Workbench_1_
0.png>


Marko

[Huge]

[14 lines snipped]

Post by Rich

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
<URL: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f_GBeKVijWQ/maxresdefault.jpg>
<URL: http://info-coach.fr/atari/software/st-projects/_big/html/gem_w
in.jpg>

Those are early Mac images. Early Mac's had the "close" separated from
the other controls.
Then Win moved them together into the top right, and Mac moved them
together into the top left.

And Xerox had them at the top right, where God intended.

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/guis/xerox/screenshots

Note that the buttons have shadows.

[RS Wood]

Post by Bob Eager
I used LXDE until recently. It seems to be showing signs of neglect, and
there are various iconsistencies in the way it handles desktop entries
etc. That finally convinced me to leave.

I think I'm remembering that LXDE merged with something else that starts
with a Q, and the union isn't quite totally consummated yet.

[Bob Eager]

Post by RS Wood

Post by Bob Eager
I used LXDE until recently. It seems to be showing signs of neglect,
and there are various iconsistencies in the way it handles desktop
entries etc. That finally convinced me to leave.

I think I'm remembering that LXDE merged with something else that starts
with a Q, and the union isn't quite totally consummated yet.

That's true. However, it seems a slow process and LXDE has deteriorated.
I also had little confidence that it would fix some of the issues I had.

XFCE worked 'out of the box' and I could configure it as I wanted. Much
cleaner.

(as an aside, I'd been using roxterm for my (many) terminal sessions.
That has died a death, pretty well, and it took ages to find a
replacement that could be configured how I wanted. I ended up with
termit*, which is configured using LUA!

* no, not kermit, which I started using over 30 years ago!

[Ben Bacarisse]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window by
clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner. LXDE allows that (well,
actually it's Openbox).

This is my preference too.

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Unfortunately, there are obnoxious applications like Evince that take
over the task of decorating their own windows and fail to obey the
window manager settings.

And the X is at the top left in evince on my Gnome system to where I had
to move it since it was on the right by default. It seems unlikely the
evince itself is drawing it but you never know these days. It certainly
respects my Gnome settings.

[Rich]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
If LXDE is targeting this userspace then it is likely simply providing
a usage mode that its designers felt its target audience was already
using.

No, LXDE is a classic environment with regular, overlapping windows.

Ah, I see. Then somewhere they went a little overboard.

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
A minimum requirement for me is that I must be able to close a window
by clicking at the upper *left-hand* corner. LXDE allows that (well,
actually it's Openbox).

Hense one of the reasons why my Linux's run only Fvwm2 without all of
the DE crapola. I can define any button, left side or right side, to
do whatever I want on any of my windows. In fact, I can add any
function I like to occur on any mouse click upon any window border or
corner.

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Unfortunately, there are obnoxious applications like Evince that take
over the task of decorating their own windows and fail to obey the
window manager settings.

With Fvwm2 I can (should I choose to do so) instruct Fvwm2 to ignore
such application's requests and instead _do what I told you to do_
(which would be to put the normal Fvwm2 decorations around the window
anyway).

Case in point, an early version of OpenOffice (likely before it was
named OpenOffice) had an obnoxious habit of raising all of its windows
whenever the mouse cursor entered any one of them on screen. A bit of
Fvwm2 configuration and OpenOffice was forced to behave itself instead.
Its windows then only raised when I explicitly asked Fvwm2 to raise
them.

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Rich

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Unfortunately, there are obnoxious applications like Evince that take
over the task of decorating their own windows and fail to obey the
window manager settings.

With Fvwm2 I can (should I choose to do so) instruct Fvwm2 to ignore
such application's requests and instead _do what I told you to do_
(which would be to put the normal Fvwm2 decorations around the window
anyway).

I suspect evince requests and gets an unframed window from the WM. Then,
evince draws its own title bar completely ignoring the Openbox theme.
(According to Ben Bacarisse, it's trying to follow a Gnome theme, but
I'm don't have Gnome installed.)


Marko

[Mike Spencer]

Post by Rich

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Unfortunately, there are obnoxious applications like Evince that take
over the task of decorating their own windows and fail to obey the
window manager settings.

With Fvwm2 I can (should I choose to do so) instruct Fvwm2 to ignore
such application's requests and instead _do what I told you to do_
(which would be to put the normal Fvwm2 decorations around the window
anyway).

Hmm. On my newest system, I see that Firefox and xterm provide
descriptions/code for their own icons, viz. when iconified, they have
these great huge, self-congratulatory, real estate-eating icons.
Screws up my usual screen arrangement in twm. I may soon be impelled
to creep a tiny tad fruther away from the trailing edge of
tech. Fvwm2, you say? I shall have to take a look.

[The Real Bev]

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Rich

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Unfortunately, there are obnoxious applications like Evince that take
over the task of decorating their own windows and fail to obey the
window manager settings.

With Fvwm2 I can (should I choose to do so) instruct Fvwm2 to ignore
such application's requests and instead _do what I told you to do_
(which would be to put the normal Fvwm2 decorations around the window
anyway).

Hmm. On my newest system, I see that Firefox and xterm provide
descriptions/code for their own icons, viz. when iconified, they have
these great huge, self-congratulatory, real estate-eating icons.
Screws up my usual screen arrangement in twm. I may soon be impelled
to creep a tiny tad fruther away from the trailing edge of
tech. Fvwm2, you say? I shall have to take a look.

You will probably have to spend a reasonable amount of time configuring
the menu by hand (.fvwm2rc or equivalent), but it's not difficult. There
may even be some sort of menu-driven way of doing it, but I just edit my
.fvwm95rc by hand.

Pretty much NOTHING I use is located in a standard place, which makes my
life more difficult.

BUT KDE does some stuff automatically that I could never get to work
under fvwm95 -- my daughter's wifi network, for instance; I had to run
a 50-foot ethernet cable :-( I think you can make the KDE icons
smaller, but I'm not sure about that -- it was 7 years ago that I played
with it.

[Rich]

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Rich

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Unfortunately, there are obnoxious applications like Evince that take
over the task of decorating their own windows and fail to obey the
window manager settings.

With Fvwm2 I can (should I choose to do so) instruct Fvwm2 to ignore
such application's requests and instead _do what I told you to do_
(which would be to put the normal Fvwm2 decorations around the window
anyway).

Hmm. On my newest system, I see that Firefox and xterm provide
descriptions/code for their own icons, viz. when iconified, they have
these great huge, self-congratulatory, real estate-eating icons.
Screws up my usual screen arrangement in twm. I may soon be impelled
to creep a tiny tad fruther away from the trailing edge of
tech. Fvwm2, you say? I shall have to take a look.

There are lots of configuration options in Fvwm2, and a subset of them
deal with "ignore what the program creating the window just requested".
Which allows the "window manager" to be the final arbiter of how things
are drawn on screen, and ultimately allows you the user to have that
final say.

[Mike Spencer]

Post by Rich
There are lots of configuration options in Fvwm2, and a subset of them
deal with "ignore what the program creating the window just requested".
Which allows the "window manager" to be the final arbiter of how things
are drawn on screen, and ultimately allows you the user to have that
final say.

Sounds good. I'll have a look when my Slackware DVD arrives. (Hello
Canada Post? The holiday weekend is over?)

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Rich
There are lots of configuration options in Fvwm2, and a subset of them
deal with "ignore what the program creating the window just
requested". Which allows the "window manager" to be the final arbiter
of how things are drawn on screen, and ultimately allows you the user
to have that final say.

I doubt fvwm2 can tame evince. If fvwm2 ignored the application's
request of going unframed, the result would be *two* title bars: one
drawn by the window manager and another one drawn by evince.


Marko

[Dan Espen]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
There are lots of configuration options in Fvwm2, and a subset of them
deal with "ignore what the program creating the window just
requested". Which allows the "window manager" to be the final arbiter
of how things are drawn on screen, and ultimately allows you the user
to have that final say.

I doubt fvwm2 can tame evince. If fvwm2 ignored the application's
request of going unframed, the result would be *two* title bars: one
drawn by the window manager and another one drawn by evince.

Evince comes up with a title bar and frame for me.

Applications with their own WM controls are annoying.
Not clear to me why they think they need them.

[Bob Eager]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
There are lots of configuration options in Fvwm2, and a subset of them
deal with "ignore what the program creating the window just
requested". Which allows the "window manager" to be the final arbiter
of how things are drawn on screen, and ultimately allows you the user
to have that final say.

I doubt fvwm2 can tame evince. If fvwm2 ignored the application's
request of going unframed, the result would be *two* title bars: one
drawn by the window manager and another one drawn by evince.

Evince comes up with a title bar and frame for me.
Applications with their own WM controls are annoying.
Not clear to me why they think they need them.

I used evolution (just the address book and calendar) for quite a while.
I got fed up with the bloat, and all the extra processes it started.

Now it's Google Calendar for calendar (I have no secrets!) and a hacked
version of dlume for address book, since that's really lightweight.

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
I doubt fvwm2 can tame evince. If fvwm2 ignored the application's
request of going unframed, the result would be *two* title bars: one
drawn by the window manager and another one drawn by evince.

Evince comes up with a title bar and frame for me.

How do you know that?

Post by Dan Espen
Applications with their own WM controls are annoying.

True.

Post by Dan Espen
Not clear to me why they think they need them.

The evince "title bar" is as follows:

+---+---+------+---+---+---+---+-------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+
| M | 1 | of 1 | < | > | F | A | x.pdf | 101.16% v | S | O | _ | # | X |
+---+---+------+---+---+---+---+-------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+
| |

where

M = menu
< = previous page

Post by Dan Espen
= next page

F = find
A = annotate
S = settings
O = options
_ = minimize
# = maximize
X = close

So I understand they are trying not to waste space. However, the
justification is not good enough.


Marko

[Dan Espen]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
I doubt fvwm2 can tame evince. If fvwm2 ignored the application's
request of going unframed, the result would be *two* title bars: one
drawn by the window manager and another one drawn by evince.

Evince comes up with a title bar and frame for me.

How do you know that?

I'm using Fvwm2, I started evince.
I see the Fvwm2 supplied frame and title bar.

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Dan Espen
Applications with their own WM controls are annoying.

True.

Post by Dan Espen
Not clear to me why they think they need them.

+---+---+------+---+---+---+---+-------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+
| M | 1 | of 1 | < | > | F | A | x.pdf | 101.16% v | S | O | _ | # | X |
+---+---+------+---+---+---+---+-------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+
| |
where
M = menu
< = previous page

Post by Dan Espen
= next page

F = find
A = annotate
S = settings
O = options
_ = minimize
# = maximize
X = close
So I understand they are trying not to waste space. However, the
justification is not good enough.

I get that they are not wasting space in the sense that they have other
things on their internal title bar, but the duplicated WM controls and
title are just annoying.

[Rich]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Rich
There are lots of configuration options in Fvwm2, and a subset of them
deal with "ignore what the program creating the window just
requested". Which allows the "window manager" to be the final arbiter
of how things are drawn on screen, and ultimately allows you the user
to have that final say.

I doubt fvwm2 can tame evince. If fvwm2 ignored the application's
request of going unframed, the result would be *two* title bars: one
drawn by the window manager and another one drawn by evince.

Tame it, as in make it (Evince) not draw its own title bars, no.

Force its window to be wrapped in a normal fvwm2 title bar and border
set, yes.

Double title bars, unfortunate outcome of Evinnce trying to draw
everything itself.

[Dan Espen]

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Rich

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Unfortunately, there are obnoxious applications like Evince that take
over the task of decorating their own windows and fail to obey the
window manager settings.

With Fvwm2 I can (should I choose to do so) instruct Fvwm2 to ignore
such application's requests and instead _do what I told you to do_
(which would be to put the normal Fvwm2 decorations around the window
anyway).

Hmm. On my newest system, I see that Firefox and xterm provide
descriptions/code for their own icons, viz. when iconified, they have
these great huge, self-congratulatory, real estate-eating icons.
Screws up my usual screen arrangement in twm. I may soon be impelled
to creep a tiny tad fruther away from the trailing edge of
tech. Fvwm2, you say? I shall have to take a look.

Fvwm2 _will_ let you override the app supplied icon.

[Ivan Shmakov]

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Rich

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Unfortunately, there are obnoxious applications like Evince that
take over the task of decorating their own windows and fail to obey
the window manager settings.

With Fvwm2 I can (should I choose to do so) instruct Fvwm2 to ignore
such application's requests and instead _do what I told you to do_
(which would be to put the normal Fvwm2 decorations around the
window anyway).

Hmm. On my newest system, I see that Firefox and xterm provide
descriptions/code for their own icons, viz. when iconified, they have
these great huge, self-congratulatory, real estate-eating icons.
Screws up my usual screen arrangement in twm. I may soon be impelled
to creep a tiny tad fruther away from the trailing edge of tech.
Fvwm2, you say? I shall have to take a look.

AIUI, the icon for XTerm can be overridden via X resources; like
(untested):

$ printf %s\\n {,U}XTerm.iconHint:none | xrdb -merge

For the less configurable applications, there's a "ForceIcons"
~/.twmrc option. For example:

ForceIcons
Icons {
"UXTerm" "vlines2"
"XTerm" "vlines2"
}

[Mike Spencer]

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by Mike Spencer
Hmm. On my newest system, I see that Firefox and xterm provide
descriptions/code for their own icons, viz. when iconified, they have
these great huge, self-congratulatory, real estate-eating icons.
Screws up my usual screen arrangement in twm. I may soon be impelled
to creep a tiny tad fruther away from the trailing edge of tech.
Fvwm2, you say? I shall have to take a look.

AIUI, the icon for XTerm can be overridden via X resources; like
$ printf %s\\n {,U}XTerm.iconHint:none | xrdb -merge
For the less configurable applications, there's a "ForceIcons"
ForceIcons
Icons {
"UXTerm" "vlines2"
"XTerm" "vlines2"
}

Okay, I'll give that a try. I wonder if you can do that with Firefox?
Been using twm for years but not a twm config wizard. I managed to
get the keyboard & mouse doing what I want with .Xmodmap after
extensive groveling. Maybe it's time to beat up .twmrc.

Saved for when I next boot the newer system.

Tnx,

[Ivan Shmakov]

[Cross-posting to news:comp.windows.x.]

[...]

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Ivan Shmakov
AIUI, the icon for XTerm can be overridden via X resources; like
$ printf %s\\n {,U}XTerm.iconHint:none | xrdb -merge
For the less configurable applications, there's a "ForceIcons"
ForceIcons
Icons { "UXTerm" "vlines2" "XTerm" "vlines2" }

Okay, I'll give that a try. I wonder if you can do that with
Firefox?

Sure. You will need to find out its "class" name with xprop(1),
though. Mine uses "Firefox-esr", so:

Icons {
"Firefox-esr" "vlines2"
}

Post by Mike Spencer
Been using twm for years but not a twm config wizard.
I managed to get the keyboard & mouse doing what I want with .Xmodmap
after extensive groveling. Maybe it's time to beat up .twmrc.
Saved for when I next boot the newer system.

There's an 'f.restart' TWM function, BTW.

[Mike Spencer]

Post by Ivan Shmakov
[Cross-posting to news:comp.windows.x.]

[snip more on twm config]

TYVM; saved for when the newer machine is up.

[Johnny B Good]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the plane
of the screen.
What's a flat GUI and what's the (lumpy?) alternative?

<URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_design>
I'm not much smarter even after reading the article, but it appears to
refer to the principle of removing visual cues such as shading, framing
and ornamenting. It is all the rage on cell phones and tables, and it
has spread to desktop GUIs as well.
I'm not much bothered by it because I use LXDE. I switched when I no
longer knew how to operate Gnome.
Not sure if it is part of "flat" but the one of the most annoying DE
fads is applications taking up the whole screen. It seems today's
"windowing system" is one where you need a separate physical screen for
each application.

Yes, I too miss the nice clean lines of the windows 95osr2 and win2k
desktop environments. :-( Also, like you, I'm not very much the wiser
after reading that wikipedia article.

One of the many irritations, aside from the inexplicable "Bug" of
'struggling in amber like a trapped insect (forget about the expression,
swimming in molasses - that totally fails as a metaphor in this case)
after deleting too much data/too many files (I never did figure out what
the 'trigger' condition was for this particular "bug[1]"), was the sudden
requirement to fully expand the width of folder windows to 800 or more
pixels in order to see all of the folder window status information,
making explorer space inefficient in the extreme (a theme also repeated
in that PoS sold to the great unwashed as windows XP).

I always thought that the initial screen message of a newly purchased PC
afflicted with winXP (or a freshly installed/re-installed winXP OS)
should have included a note of apology along the lines of:

"To those of you who have previously run windows95 or windows 2000,
congratulations and many, many thanks for 'choosing' Windows XP. You will
undoubtedly experience some loss of functionality and we therefore offer
our heartfelt condolences and hope that your period of mourning will be
mercifully brief as you learn to adjust to the behaviour of what we hope
you will eventually come to consider as that "Lovable[2] Idiot Son of
Windows 2000 / windows 95".

It's a case of great shame on the Linux desktop developers that my
choice of Linux Mint KDE 17.1 is driven more by a matter of least worst
solution than by excellence in the alternatives they provide to counter
Microsoft desktop offerings. Indeed, the later versions, just like the
Microsoft offerings over the past two decades, seem to be going from bad
to worse, hence my still using LM17.1 to this day. :-(

[1] After experiencing this particular "bug" on most of my customers'
winXP boxes when cleaning out the gigabytes of 'cruft' accumulated by IE
over just a year or two of use (I never inflicted win98 on any of my own
PCs, preferring to stick with the more reliable and less irritating
win95osr2 until belatedly discovering the joys of win2k in 2004), I was
eventually impelled to install and fire up Sysinternals' "Process
Monitor" prior to such mass deletions in an attempt to discover what was
going on.

When I did eventually catch win98 with its knickers around its ankles,
so to speak, I was rather bemused to discover that there was no
mysterious hogging of the CPU by anything other than "System Idle", a
finding that remained true of all subsequent instances of the "Trapped in
Amber" bug kicking off.

I was thus left to conclude that Microsoft had decided to incorporate a
'punishment algorithm' into the file deletion code to dissuade users from
cleaning out IE's massive collection of 'junk' so assistive to the
strategy of prematurely reducing the performance of a newly purchased
desktop PC by the use of the totally kakamaimee default Pagefile settings
whose prime purpose seemed solely to be the shortening of the hardware
upgrade cycle to promote increased sales of the 'latest and newest'
desktop PCs.

Incidentally, for the few amongst us who may still be running a desktop
or notebook PC cursed with win98 of any flavour, the 'work around' for
this particular bug is simply to log out and then straight back in again
to restore normal service.

The period of unresponsiveness, which can vary from a matter of minutes
right up to 'forever' before it returns to a sluggish version of
'normality', has nothing whatsoever to do with still being occupied with
the mass deletion job - the deletion process itself will have long since
completed by then.

[2] The "Lovable" part of that descriptive is what I'd guess Microsoft
would add as 'their spin' on a self confessed admission of the true
nature of winXP which more accurately could be better described simply as
"The Idiot Son of Windows 2000" due to the lobotomy applied to Explorer's
folder window sizing algorithm which had been so vital to maximising the
benefit of a GUI designed to allow its users to fully and clearly
visualise the file system within the confines of the 1024 by 768 "State
of The Art" in display technology screens of the day.

[Mike Spencer]

Post by Marko Rauhamaa

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.
What's a flat GUI and what's the (lumpy?) alternative?

<URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_design>
I'm not much smarter even after reading the article, but it appears to
refer to the principle of removing visual cues such as shading, framing
and ornamenting. It is all the rage on cell phones and tables, and it
has spread to desktop GUIs as well.

Ah, so. Tnx. I even know about that because I spent a part-time year
producing the graphics for some eduware under Windoes 3.1. Creating
all the virtual shadows, frames, dingbats [1] and such was, to my mind,
a superfluous PITA. I suppose most of the PITA is now assumed by some
API tool that lets you build window managers, desktop frill-collections
(there's a word for that I forget) etc. less onerously.

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
I'm not much bothered by it because I use LXDE. I switched when I no
longer knew how to operate Gnome.

Still using twm. IIRC, uwm (Ultrix wm, same era as Win 3.1, X 10) was
even less ornamented, which proved handy as the frameless windows
could be juxtaposed, allowing separate graphics or video to appear
continuous between them.

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Not sure if it is part of "flat" but the one of the most annoying DE
fads is applications taking up the whole screen. It seems today's
"windowing system" is one where you need a separate physical screen for
each application.

Huh.

[1] And I learned what a dingbat is because my jr. high offered print
shop: hand-set type, treadle presses and all.


Clinging doggedly to the trailing edge of tecnology,

[Ivan Shmakov]

[...]

Post by Mike Spencer
Still using twm.

Two issues I'm having with TWM (or, rather, VTWM, but I gather
there're no differences in these areas) are the lack of support
for keyboard-based menu navigation and, of course, Unicode.

Hence, while I do consider it a good "backup" WM, I give it the
third place in my book -- right after JWM and Openbox. (I'm
unsure about Fvwm2; I guess it'd come fourth.)

As for the "working out of box" part -- I have an Rsync "filter"
file that I use to upload my .jwmrc, openbox/rc.xml, .twmrc
(as well as .emacs, .bashrc, and many more) to any fresh $HOME
I'm about to start using.

Post by Mike Spencer
IIRC, uwm (Ultrix wm, same era as Win 3.1, X 10) was even less
ornamented, which proved handy as the frameless windows could be
juxtaposed, allowing separate graphics or video to appear continuous
between them.

FWIW, I have ClientBorderWidth in my ~/.twmrc and the X
applications I run typically have zero-width borders.

(As well as MakeTitle / NoTitle.)

Post by Mike Spencer

Post by Marko Rauhamaa
Not sure if it is part of "flat" but the one of the most annoying DE
fads is applications taking up the whole screen. It seems today's
"windowing system" is one where you need a separate physical screen
for each application.

Huh.

?

Generally, I tend to run the "payload" applications (XTerm,
Sxiv, Firefox, Merkaartor, ...) in "wholescreen" mode, but I'm
of course glad that I can put application windows "side by side"
when I need that.

[...]

Post by Mike Spencer
My electric toaster is 104 years old.

!

[RS Wood]

On 07 Sep 2017 00:45:08 -0300

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.
What's a flat GUI and what's the (lumpy?) alternative?

This screenshot of MS Word 2000 shows the lumpy alternative. There's a
sense of ridges, highs and lows, etc. The buttons have shadows on
their right and bottom sides.
Loading Image...

Recently, everyone decided to do away with those visual cues. The
buttons on the window title bar are just colors, now sense of 3
dimensions.
Loading Image...

Here's a particularly egregious example:
Loading Image...

Happily, this theme is labeled "SOL" which I can only surmise stands
for "shit out of luck."

[Huge]

Post by RS Wood
On 07 Sep 2017 00:45:08 -0300

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.
What's a flat GUI and what's the (lumpy?) alternative?

This screenshot of MS Word 2000 shows the lumpy alternative. There's a
sense of ridges, highs and lows, etc. The buttons have shadows on
their right and bottom sides.
http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk/MW/images/WordStartUp.jpg
Recently, everyone decided to do away with those visual cues. The
buttons on the window title bar are just colors, now sense of 3
dimensions.

And more importantly, it's no longer obvious what's a button and what's
just a coloured panel.

[RS Wood]

On 7 Sep 2017 16:18:57 GMT

Post by Huge
And more importantly, it's no longer obvious what's a button and what's
just a coloured panel.

I'm reminded of the new trend in journalists' photo presentations,
where you have to discover the invisible left and right arrows that pop
up over the image in order to advance to the next pictures. Took me
ages the first time to figure it out, after wasting a lot of time
looking elsewhere on the page for buttons.

Screw this clever "innovation."

[Huge]

Post by RS Wood
On 7 Sep 2017 16:18:57 GMT

Post by Huge
And more importantly, it's no longer obvious what's a button and what's
just a coloured panel.

I'm reminded of the new trend in journalists' photo presentations,
where you have to discover the invisible left and right arrows that pop
up over the image in order to advance to the next pictures. Took me
ages the first time to figure it out, after wasting a lot of time
looking elsewhere on the page for buttons.
Screw this clever "innovation."

*applause*

And this stuff isn't even new ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation

[Rich]

Post by Huge

Post by RS Wood
On 07 Sep 2017 00:45:08 -0300

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.
What's a flat GUI and what's the (lumpy?) alternative?

This screenshot of MS Word 2000 shows the lumpy alternative. There's a
sense of ridges, highs and lows, etc. The buttons have shadows on
their right and bottom sides.
http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk/MW/images/WordStartUp.jpg
Recently, everyone decided to do away with those visual cues. The
buttons on the window title bar are just colors, now sense of 3
dimensions.

And more importantly, it's no longer obvious what's a button and what's
just a coloured panel.

And this is exactly the trouble with the "flat" UI design fad. There's
no visual feedback that something is at all an "active" area if
it were to be clicked/touched.

[Huge]

Post by Rich

Post by Huge

Post by RS Wood
On 07 Sep 2017 00:45:08 -0300

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.
What's a flat GUI and what's the (lumpy?) alternative?

This screenshot of MS Word 2000 shows the lumpy alternative. There's a
sense of ridges, highs and lows, etc. The buttons have shadows on
their right and bottom sides.
http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk/MW/images/WordStartUp.jpg
Recently, everyone decided to do away with those visual cues. The
buttons on the window title bar are just colors, now sense of 3
dimensions.

And more importantly, it's no longer obvious what's a button and what's
just a coloured panel.

And this is exactly the trouble with the "flat" UI design fad. There's
no visual feedback that something is at all an "active" area if
it were to be clicked/touched.

Bingo.

[Ben Bacarisse]

Post by RS Wood
On 07 Sep 2017 00:45:08 -0300

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.

I am very glad to have flat designs. They have to be good designs, but
I like them very much more than trompe l'oeil 3D ones.

<snip>

Post by RS Wood
https://orig15.deviantart.net/f12c/f/2014/100/f/b/sol___kde_theme_by_garthecho-d7dsxzy.png
Happily, this theme is labeled "SOL" which I can only surmise stands
for "shit out of luck."

Looks particularly good to me! I've always hated lumpy designs (from a
purely aethetic point of view -- there's no usability issue with them)
perhaps because I've used GUIs from the very early days where they were
not an option for technical reasons.

But isn't it great to have the choice? Sadly you don't on so many
systems, but you do with KDE et al. If I used KDE I'd check out SOL.
Maybe there is something similar for Gnome 3.

[Huge]

Post by Ben Bacarisse

Post by RS Wood
On 07 Sep 2017 00:45:08 -0300

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.

I am very glad to have flat designs. They have to be good designs, but
I like them very much more than trompe l'oeil 3D ones.
<snip>

Post by RS Wood
https://orig15.deviantart.net/f12c/f/2014/100/f/b/sol___kde_theme_by_garthecho-d7dsxzy.png
Happily, this theme is labeled "SOL" which I can only surmise stands
for "shit out of luck."

Looks particularly good to me! I've always hated lumpy designs (from a
purely aethetic point of view -- there's no usability issue with them)
perhaps because I've used GUIs from the very early days where they were
not an option for technical reasons.

And which "very early days" would those be? This is the Xerox Star GUI
from 1981. It is immediately obvious what is a button and what is not.

Loading Image...

Plenty more here;

http://www.digibarn.com/collections/xerox-all.html

Sadly, UI design seems to have moved on not-at-all in the intervening
36 years.

Post by Ben Bacarisse
But isn't it great to have the choice?

That at least is true.

[Ben Bacarisse]

Post by Huge

Post by Ben Bacarisse

Post by RS Wood
On 07 Sep 2017 00:45:08 -0300

Post by Mike Spencer
Jeez, I don't even know what a flat GUI is. It's all flat in the
plane of the screen.

I am very glad to have flat designs. They have to be good designs, but
I like them very much more than trompe l'oeil 3D ones.
<snip>

Post by RS Wood
https://orig15.deviantart.net/f12c/f/2014/100/f/b/sol___kde_theme_by_garthecho-d7dsxzy.png
Happily, this theme is labeled "SOL" which I can only surmise stands
for "shit out of luck."

Looks particularly good to me! I've always hated lumpy designs (from a
purely aethetic point of view -- there's no usability issue with them)
perhaps because I've used GUIs from the very early days where they were
not an option for technical reasons.

And which "very early days" would those be? This is the Xerox Star GUI
from 1981. It is immediately obvious what is a button and what is not.

Yes, from that era, though I never used the Star.

Post by Huge
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/software/xerox-star/figure5-big.jpg

As you can see, it's not "lumpy".

As for knowing what is a button and what is not, are you sure, because
I'm not. Is the title a button? It looks just like the things on the
left that I am pretty sure are buttons.

There are lots of the other things you might not know without some
training. Is the little square in the bottom right active or just left
over from the scrollbars. Are they (the scrollbars) clickable? Can you
tell just by looking?

In the screenshot of the SOL theme, I was not confused about what is a
button and what is not, but that is in part because I have lots of
contextual knowledge. No GUI can be understood without some context.

The point I'd make is that it's probably better to distinguish between
good and bad designs, rather than calling all flat ones bad. Or,
alternatively, it may be better to talk about how easy it is to get it
right or wrong with a flat or a lumpy design.

<snip>

[Sylvia Else]

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend needs
to die in a fire. ("design for the sake of design.") I'm not a huge
fan of Windows software, but Windows XP UI was perfectly usable, I
thought, and it's gotten worse since then. On a recent Win10 install I
found the calculator app (an extremely flat design) to be one of the
ugliest things I've seen in software: just about as bad as Motif stuff
from early Unix GUI days (which was excoriated for its ugliness).
Screw Win for inventing it and Apple for making the rest of the world
copy it.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/flat_uis_designs_are_22_per_cent_slower_official/
//--clip
The mania is credited to Microsoft with its minimalistic Zune player,
an iPod clone, which was developed into the Windows Phone Series UX,
which in turn became the design for Windows from Windows 8 in 2012
onwards. But Steve Jobs is also to blame. The typography-besotted Apple
founder was fascinated by WP's "magazine-style" Metro design, and it
was posthumously incorporated into iOS7 in 2013. Once blessed by Apple,
flat designs spread to electronic programme guides on telly, games
consoles and even car interfaces. And of course web sites.
Flat designs looked "cleaner" and more "modern" (Microsoft's subsequent
portmanteau term for its Metro design), but there was a price to pay.
The consequence is that users find navigation harder, and so spend more
time on a page. Now research by the Nielsen Norman Group has measured
by how much. The company wired up 71 users, and gave them nine sites to
use, tracking their eye movement and recording the time spent on
content.
"On average participants spent 22 per cent more time (i.e. slower task
performance) looking at the pages with weak signifiers," the firm
notes. Why would that be? Users were looking for clues how to navigate.
"The average number of fixations was significantly higher on the
weak-signifier versions than the strong-signifier versions. On average,
people had 25 per cent more fixations on the pages with weak
signifiers."
The firm dispenses with the counter-argument that users were "more
engaged" with the page.
"Since this experiment used targeted findability tasks, more time and
effort spent looking around the page are not good. These findings don't
mean that users were more 'engaged' with the pages. Instead, they
suggest that participants struggled to locate the element they wanted,
or weren't confident when they first saw it."
//--clip

At that, the experiment wouldn't have captured the number of people who
simply abandon a site out of exasperation, or, if they need to use the
site, call up a help line.

"When you press this button, labelled in black on a black background, a
black light lights up black to tell you you've done it." Hitchhiker's Guide.

Sylvia.

[Huge]

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend needs
to die in a fire.

Hear, hear.

[RS Wood]

On 6 Sep 2017 09:55:41 GMT

Post by Huge

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend needs
to die in a fire.

Hear, hear.

I was a KDE guy from the start, preferring it (when I want a full
desktop instead of something like Windowmaker) over Gnome 1, 2, and 3
starting with my first Linux box in 2001. But its current, flat
aesthetic really, really turns me off. (Yes i know I can refit themes,
icons, and colors). Cinnamon isn't as featureful or as customizable,
but it looks really damn good the second ISO installation stops and I'm
generally very happy with it.

I don't know why KDE has swallowed the flat aesthetic so totally. I
find it makes everything harder to navigate, and it annoys me more and
more.

(I've got some other gripes about KDE too, but they don't fit in this
thread. Their continuous train wreck of an email/calendar suite never
seems to get its act cleaned up, and the Calligra/former KOffice suite
seems to crash upon install even on a freshly installed distro - I find
myself asking what's the point?)

[Rich]

Post by RS Wood
On 6 Sep 2017 09:55:41 GMT

Post by Huge

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend needs
to die in a fire.

Hear, hear.

I don't know why KDE has swallowed the flat aesthetic so totally. I
find it makes everything harder to navigate, and it annoys me more and
more.

Because these things are driven by "designers" rather than by actual
users. And "designers", in any area, must "design something new" on a
regular basis or there would be no justification for their receiving
their next paycheck.

So you get these ever present cycles of "design" changes for change's
sake (when in reality it is for "preserve my (the designer's) paycheck"
sake).

You can see it most often in the clothing industry, where there's
always some new 'trend' on the way. Where the 'trend' is simply
something to get fools to toss their perfectly good clothing that was
"new and trendy" just last year in exchange for this years new 'trendy'
clothing (which such action then pads the pockets of: designers,
manufactures, retailers, advertisers, etc.).

[Huge]

Post by Rich

Post by RS Wood
On 6 Sep 2017 09:55:41 GMT

Post by Huge

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend needs
to die in a fire.

Hear, hear.

I don't know why KDE has swallowed the flat aesthetic so totally. I
find it makes everything harder to navigate, and it annoys me more and
more.

Because these things are driven by "designers" rather than by actual
users. And "designers", in any area, must "design something new" on a
regular basis or there would be no justification for their receiving
their next paycheck.
So you get these ever present cycles of "design" changes for change's
sake (when in reality it is for "preserve my (the designer's) paycheck"
sake).

*applause*

[Ivan Shmakov]

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend
needs to die in a fire.

[...]

Post by RS Wood
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/flat_uis_designs_are_22_per_cent_slower_official/
//--clip The mania is credited to Microsoft with its minimalistic
Zune player, an iPod clone, which was developed into the Windows
Phone Series UX, which in turn became the design for Windows from
Windows 8 in 2012 onwards. But Steve Jobs is also to blame. The
typography-besotted Apple founder was fascinated by WP's
"magazine-style" Metro design, and it was posthumously incorporated
into iOS7 in 2013. Once blessed by Apple, flat designs spread to
electronic programme guides on telly, games consoles and even car
interfaces. And of course web sites.
Flat designs looked "cleaner" and more "modern" (Microsoft's
subsequent portmanteau term for its Metro design), but there was a
price to pay.
The consequence is that users find navigation harder, and so spend
more time on a page. Now research by the Nielsen Norman Group has
measured by how much. The company wired up 71 users, and gave them
nine sites to use, tracking their eye movement and recording the time
spent on content.
"On average participants spent 22 per cent more time (i. e. slower
task performance) looking at the pages with weak signifiers," the
firm notes. Why would that be? Users were looking for clues how to
navigate.

I think that free software are also to blame for spreading this
disease. Ever seen Slrn, for instance? No "drop shadows,
gradients or textures" whatsoever. Apparently, John E. Davis
decided to join this fad as far back as in 1994.

The same is of course true for many other free software
projects; Tin, Mutt and top(1) readily come to mind. Even Vim,
unless started as "gvim," presents such an utterly deplorable UI.

Naturally, any Web site accessed with the Lynx browser comes
entirely flat, too.

Thankfully, now you know that every time you access XTerm, your
productivity falls by about 22%, so you can work on overcoming
such a bad habit.

[...]

[Rich]

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by RS Wood
Finally, a study confirms the patently obvious: this design trend
needs to die in a fire.

[...]

Post by RS Wood
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/flat_uis_designs_are_22_per_cent_slower_official/
Flat designs looked "cleaner" and more "modern" (Microsoft's
subsequent portmanteau term for its Metro design), but there was a
price to pay.
The consequence is that users find navigation harder, and so spend
more time on a page. Now research by the Nielsen Norman Group has
measured by how much. The company wired up 71 users, and gave them
nine sites to use, tracking their eye movement and recording the time
spent on content.
"On average participants spent 22 per cent more time (i. e. slower
task performance) looking at the pages with weak signifiers," the
firm notes. Why would that be? Users were looking for clues how to
navigate.

I think that free software are also to blame for spreading this
disease. Ever seen Slrn, for instance? No "drop shadows,
gradients or textures" whatsoever. Apparently, John E. Davis
decided to join this fad as far back as in 1994.
The same is of course true for many other free software
projects; Tin, Mutt and top(1) readily come to mind. Even Vim,
unless started as "gvim," presents such an utterly deplorable UI.
Naturally, any Web site accessed with the Lynx browser comes
entirely flat, too.
Thankfully, now you know that every time you access XTerm, your
productivity falls by about 22%, so you can work on overcoming
such a bad habit.

Not the same at all. A keyboard driven UI, where the user is expected
to memorize the keyboard keystrokes to do something, is not a "flat
UI". It is a keyboard driven UI.

Now, yes, anyone's first time in a fully keyboard driven program their
productivity will drop. They have some 'learning' to do before they
will come up to speed. But the UI isn't 'flat' in this sense of
'flat'.

[Ivan Shmakov]

Post by Rich

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by RS Wood
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/flat_uis_designs_are_22_per_cent_slower_official/
Flat designs looked "cleaner" and more "modern" (Microsoft's
subsequent portmanteau term for its Metro design), but there was a
price to pay.

[...]

Post by Rich

Post by Ivan Shmakov
I think that free software are also to blame for spreading this
disease. Ever seen Slrn, for instance? No "drop shadows, gradients
or textures" whatsoever. Apparently, John E. Davis decided to join
this fad as far back as in 1994.
The same is of course true for many other free software projects;
Tin, Mutt and top(1) readily come to mind. Even Vim, unless started
as "gvim," presents such an utterly deplorable UI.
Naturally, any Web site accessed with the Lynx browser comes
entirely flat, too.
Thankfully, now you know that every time you access XTerm, your
productivity falls by about 22%, so you can work on overcoming such
a bad habit.

Not the same at all. A keyboard driven UI, where the user is
expected to memorize the keyboard keystrokes to do something, is not
a "flat UI". It is a keyboard driven UI.
Now, yes, anyone's first time in a fully keyboard driven program
their productivity will drop. They have some 'learning' to do before
they will come up to speed.

... Which makes me wonder if the same reasoning may apply when
users move from "lumpy" to "flat" designs. And vice versa.

Post by Rich
But the UI isn't 'flat' in this sense of 'flat'.

I do not seem to understand. Do you suggest that should I
faithfully recreate, say, Vim as a Web application, it would
/not/ be a case of "flat design" simply by the virtue of being
"keyboard driven"?

It's entirely possible (and I daresay advisable) to design
keyboard-driven Web sites, BTW. Would they also /not/ be deemed
"flat" for the same reason?

[Rich]

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by Rich

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by RS Wood
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/05/flat_uis_designs_are_22_per_cent_slower_official/
Flat designs looked "cleaner" and more "modern" (Microsoft's
subsequent portmanteau term for its Metro design), but there was a
price to pay.

[...]

Post by Rich

Post by Ivan Shmakov
I think that free software are also to blame for spreading this
disease. Ever seen Slrn, for instance? No "drop shadows, gradients
or textures" whatsoever. Apparently, John E. Davis decided to join
this fad as far back as in 1994.
The same is of course true for many other free software projects;
Tin, Mutt and top(1) readily come to mind. Even Vim, unless started
as "gvim," presents such an utterly deplorable UI.
Naturally, any Web site accessed with the Lynx browser comes
entirely flat, too.
Thankfully, now you know that every time you access XTerm, your
productivity falls by about 22%, so you can work on overcoming such
a bad habit.

Not the same at all. A keyboard driven UI, where the user is
expected to memorize the keyboard keystrokes to do something, is not
a "flat UI". It is a keyboard driven UI.
Now, yes, anyone's first time in a fully keyboard driven program
their productivity will drop. They have some 'learning' to do before
they will come up to speed.

... Which makes me wonder if the same reasoning may apply when
users move from "lumpy" to "flat" designs. And vice versa.

Post by Rich
But the UI isn't 'flat' in this sense of 'flat'.

I do not seem to understand. Do you suggest that should I
faithfully recreate, say, Vim as a Web application, it would
/not/ be a case of "flat design" simply by the virtue of being
"keyboard driven"?
It's entirely possible (and I daresay advisable) to design
keyboard-driven Web sites, BTW. Would they also /not/ be deemed
"flat" for the same reason?

Not in this context, where flat means "has mouse clickable
buttons/widgets that do not 'stand out' from the unclickable background
in any way". In some of the extreme cases, the "mouse clickable" area
is identical in color to the unclickable background and the only way to
know if it is clickable is to try clicking it to see if anything
reacts.

A fully keyboard driven program has no "mouse clickable
buttons/widgets" so it would not fall into this specific type of "flat"
design.

[Ivan Shmakov]

[...]

Post by Rich

Post by Ivan Shmakov
I do not seem to understand. Do you suggest that should I
faithfully recreate, say, Vim as a Web application, it would /not/
be a case of "flat design" simply by the virtue of being "keyboard
driven"?
It's entirely possible (and I daresay advisable) to design
keyboard-driven Web sites, BTW. Would they also /not/ be deemed
"flat" for the same reason?

Not in this context, where flat means "has mouse clickable
buttons/widgets that do not 'stand out' from the unclickable
background in any way". In some of the extreme cases, the "mouse
clickable" area is identical in color to the unclickable background
and the only way to know if it is clickable is to try clicking it to
see if anything reacts.
A fully keyboard driven program has no "mouse clickable
buttons/widgets" so it would not fall into this specific type of
"flat" design.

Lynx is an example of an Ncurses-based program that provides
both keyboard controls /and/ "mouse clickable buttons."

By the virtue of being based on Ncurses (or perhaps Curses in
general -- I haven't tried linking it against, say, PDCurses),
it does /not/ provide buttons that "stand out" in the
Windows 95/XP way. (Instead, said buttons are either shown in
reverse, or using a different color pair.)

[Rich]

Post by Ivan Shmakov
[...]

Post by Rich

Post by Ivan Shmakov
I do not seem to understand. Do you suggest that should I
faithfully recreate, say, Vim as a Web application, it would /not/
be a case of "flat design" simply by the virtue of being "keyboard
driven"?
It's entirely possible (and I daresay advisable) to design
keyboard-driven Web sites, BTW. Would they also /not/ be deemed
"flat" for the same reason?

Not in this context, where flat means "has mouse clickable
buttons/widgets that do not 'stand out' from the unclickable
background in any way". In some of the extreme cases, the "mouse
clickable" area is identical in color to the unclickable background
and the only way to know if it is clickable is to try clicking it to
see if anything reacts.
A fully keyboard driven program has no "mouse clickable
buttons/widgets" so it would not fall into this specific type of
"flat" design.

Lynx is an example of an Ncurses-based program that provides
both keyboard controls /and/ "mouse clickable buttons."
By the virtue of being based on Ncurses (or perhaps Curses in
general -- I haven't tried linking it against, say, PDCurses),
it does /not/ provide buttons that "stand out" in the
Windows 95/XP way. (Instead, said buttons are either shown in
reverse, or using a different color pair.)

Yes, but shown in a different color or reverse video does provide some
visual clue that "there is something different about this part of the
screen". The extreme "flat" GUI's that folks are deriding so much have
a button, that has a clickable area with a blue background, that
clickable blue is identical in color to the remaining blue background
of the GUI adjacent to the button. So there's no clue that there is
even a button present, not even reverse or different color pairs, so
suggest that there exists a button in that spot.

[Ivan Shmakov]

[...]

Post by Rich

Post by Rich
Not in this context, where flat means "has mouse clickable
buttons/widgets that do not 'stand out' from the unclickable
background in any way". In some of the extreme cases, the "mouse
clickable" area is identical in color to the unclickable background
and the only way to know if it is clickable is to try clicking it
to see if anything reacts.
A fully keyboard driven program has no "mouse clickable
buttons/widgets" so it would not fall into this specific type of
"flat" design.

Lynx is an example of an Ncurses-based program that provides both
keyboard controls /and/ "mouse clickable buttons."
By the virtue of being based on Ncurses (or perhaps Curses in
general -- I haven't tried linking it against, say, PDCurses),
it does /not/ provide buttons that "stand out" in the Windows 95/XP
way. (Instead, said buttons are either shown in reverse, or using a
different color pair.)

Yes, but shown in a different color or reverse video does provide
some visual clue that "there is something different about this part
of the screen". The extreme "flat" GUI's that folks are deriding so
much have a button, that has a clickable area with a blue background,
that clickable blue is identical in color to the remaining blue
background of the GUI adjacent to the button. So there's no clue
that there is even a button present, not even reverse or different
color pairs, so suggest that there exists a button in that spot.

So, Lynx has a "flat" UI, just not of the "extreme" variety.

Yet the article that started this thread was not concerned with
just "extreme" ones, but rather /all/ "flat" UIs, right? Which
I think covers Lynx, Ncurses, etc.

Also, that's just terminology, but I see no reason to name a UI
"extreme flat" where "bad" alone suffices.

[Eric Pozharski]

*SKIP*

Post by Ivan Shmakov

Post by RS Wood
"On average participants spent 22 per cent more time (i. e. slower
task performance) looking at the pages with weak signifiers," the
firm notes. Why would that be? Users were looking for clues how to
navigate.

*SKIP*

Post by Ivan Shmakov
Thankfully, now you know that every time you access XTerm, your
productivity falls by about 22%, so you can work on overcoming such a
bad habit.

Those who don't understand ncurses are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.