--- David Lee Lambert lamber45@cse.msu.edu wrote:
On Wed, Oct 13, 2004 at 08:31:37AM -0700, William Poetra Yoga Hadisoesen wrote:
--- Andreas Mohr andi@rhlx01.fht-esslingen.de wrote:
If it really makes a functional difference, then I guess it should be
fixed,
otherwise why not leave it as is?
- Developers coming from Windows can have the same "look and feel". This
increases their productivity, although indirectly. When people see
something
different but similar to the one they see everyday, their attention will be divided to the new object and the work they are doing. And their motivation
to
work will decrease, too, if the GUI doesn't get fixed.
Once in a while on Windows, I tweak the desktop fonts and colors a little bit just so it doesn't get boring. I've made document backgrounds off-white; changed the menu font; even done a little bit with Active Desktop on some boxes. An off-by-one error in a terminal emulator that lets it only display 79 columns needs to be fixed, but I'd rather we kept little oddities like this.
Yeah, you've got a point there. But then wouldn't it be better if we start off emulating the "standard" win9x style, and then create themes and stuff? Just like reactos: they start by trying to be nt4.0-compatible, but have plans to do win2k. Or xpde: they start with the win2k shell and add the winxp features later ;)
- Windows users looking at WINE will reject it straight away, because it
doesn't look like a "professionaly-made" software, and maybe mocking it as
a
carelessly written software, with sloppy GUI. Remember, some users become developers.
I don't aggree with this either. "Professional" apps on Windows these days go out of their way to look fancy, do their own drawing, be a little bit different than Windows. (I know these have better alternatives on Linux but) look at MusicMatch Jukebox, WinAmp, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, AOL, Kodak Photo Editor... these apps have all their own icons anyway. The Win3.1->Win95 or WinNT->WinXP UI jump is already bigger than that from Wine to the average of all versions it matches, in terms of things like this.
Yes, there are inconsistencies between Windows versions, and between some programs and programs which use the "standard" ui. It's true that there are many professional programs which draw their own windows.
But have you looked more closely at WINE's window decorations? They're like Windows 95's, but they're somewhat different. I think it's better (and more appealing to the eye) if we were to define a theme (WINE theme) that looks at least obviously different from the Windows shell. It's because when we draw things so similar -- yet different -- to things found in Windows, people won't like it. It's like, doing a (sorry, just a comparison) fake thing that's similar to the original. If you have lived in China, you can find fake Nike's everywhere, for example. Or fake Yonex shuttlecocks. They're not so much different from the original, but they still look... odd. It's one reason people won't buy them.
And one more thing, is that I've found numerous off-by-one bugs in the ui part (that draws buttons, decorations, etc), just by attacking the "caption buttons" problem. I know they're off-by one bugs because they don't look right :(
I'm not a good programmer, and I don't know how the Windows UI work, so if I'm left to fix the UI bugs there would be little or no wastage of resources, it will make me learn, and also make WINE look better. So I think it should be okay for me to "fix" the buttons (and numerous bugs I find along the way).
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