Re: Interface Proposal: GUI design

[Iain Hallam]

Mondragon, Ian wrote:

>         |X|#|H| window title          |

>   I personally favor the OS X -style layout, myself, for several reasons:
>         - all buttons are in the same general location


>   I use NeXT every day, and have used WindowMaker almost exclusively for 
> years now, but I still think that having all button on one side is a 
> Good Thing (TM).


This is one of the things I think Apple got wrong in their design for 
Aqua. It looks good, but having the close button so close to the others 
is, IMO, bad design. Things that can have nasty consequences should be 
less easily clicked on by mistake, which the "all buttons together" 
design falls down on. Admittedly, the red/yellow/green colouring looks 
good and indicates what's going to happen, but it really is bad practice 
to rely on colour for presenting information to the user. The symbols 
that appear on mouseover should be there all the while, I think.

In summary, I believe that the close gadget should be on its own on one 
side of the titlebar, while the other gadgets (i.e., those that do not 
have the effect of irreperably closing the window) should be grouped 
together on the opposite side. Pick a side that is convenient - I quite 
like the Amiga style:

  [X][ Window Title                 ][v][^][D]

Where
  X = Close
  v = Minimise window size
  ^ = Restore window size
  D = Depth gadget (you can put windows in front of others)

- Iain.