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TETENAL · Sep 9, 2005, 07:45 AM

http://www.clubic.com/afficher-en-pl...an-143438.html

It seems like the Windows version of iTunes has the menu in the title bar of the window. Is this a new trend for Windows programs?

wallinbl · Sep 9, 2005, 07:51 AM

The beta of IE7 has the damn menus below the toolbar and the tab strip. It's awful to use.

mdc · Sep 9, 2005, 07:52 AM

i'm not away of any other windows applications that are like that. i'm guessing apple just wanted to make itunes look as similar as the mac version as possible. itunes 4 on windows had a proper title bar, but it looked really windowsy.

the new one looks a lot more like a mac os application running on windows.

TETENAL · Sep 9, 2005, 07:56 AM

Originally Posted by wallinbl

The beta of IE7 has the damn menus below the toolbar and the tab strip. It's awful to use.

http://www.winsupersite.com/images/r..._b1_rev_02.jpg

OK. So Windows doesn't have a default place for the menu bar at all any more? Every program puts it wherever it wants?

Tesseract · Sep 9, 2005, 08:01 AM

That IE beta is awful. There are so many slightly different appearances for different parts of the browser chrome that it's hard to tell where the chrome stops and the web page begins.

tooki · Sep 9, 2005, 09:07 AM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

It seems like the Windows version of iTunes has the menu in the title bar of the window. Is this a new trend for Windows programs?

A "trend" is something that's gaining popularity. This is one program out of literally millions of Windows apps. Hardly a trend.

tooki

TETENAL · Sep 9, 2005, 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by tooki

A "trend" is something that's gaining popularity. This is one program out of literally millions of Windows apps. Hardly a trend.

Do you also know what a question mark is?

I wanted to know whether applications are starting now to move the menu bar into the title bar on Window or whether that is staying unique to iTunes.

tooki · Sep 9, 2005, 09:24 AM

It's a single app that's been out for less than a week. It's pretty darned unlikely that it could have started a trend in that little time. It's certainly not a trend with existing apps.

tooki

wdlove · Sep 9, 2005, 09:27 AM

I think that the Mac version looks much better.

turtle777 · Sep 9, 2005, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by tooki

A "trend" is something that's gaining popularity. This is one program out of literally millions of Windows apps. Hardly a trend.

tooki

It still could be the beginning of a trend. Which would make TETENAL a trend scout

-t

angelmb · Sep 9, 2005, 12:41 PM

Reminds me how bad (subjective opinion) the Finder looks with text in the Toolbar instead of icons…

olePigeon · Sep 9, 2005, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

http://www.winsupersite.com/images/r..._b1_rev_02.jpg

OK. So Windows doesn't have a default place for the menu bar at all any more? Every program puts it wherever it wants?

Wow, that actually took me a while to find the stupid File menu.

andreas_g4 · Sep 9, 2005, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by angelmb

Reminds me how bad (subjective opinion) the Finder looks with text in the Toolbar instead of icons…

When I had an iBook I used to have it that way (in column view, of course) 'cause it uses less space. Icon view with generic icons sucks anyway.

andreas_g4 · 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

http://www.clubic.com/afficher-en-pl...an-143438.html

It seems like the Windows version of iTunes has the menu in the title bar of the window. Is this a new trend for Windows programs?

Even if so, it is still lacking continuity, since the title bar can be elsewhere. The menu bar handling must be one of Windows biggest disadvantages. Ever since.

mdc · Sep 9, 2005, 01:02 PM

i wonder if microsoft regrets their positioning of the file menu in windows?
i may be wrong, but never before ie7 has the file menu not been at the top of a window. i whole-heartedly agree with mac os having the changing file menu at the top of the screen. i find it completely pointless having one on each window (but i'm not going to get into that since it's been discussed to death).

just wondering out loud, if microsoft is going to make more applications with a completely random location of the file menu.

TETENAL · Sep 9, 2005, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by andreas_g4

Even if so, it is still lacking continuity, since the title bar can be elsewhere.

What do you mean by "the title bar can be elsewhere"? The title bar is always at the top of the window. That's a consistent position.

kmkkid · Sep 9, 2005, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

http://www.winsupersite.com/images/r..._b1_rev_02.jpg

OK. So Windows doesn't have a default place for the menu bar at all any more? Every program puts it wherever it wants?

OK. So OS X doesn't have a default look for applications at all any more? Every program looks whatever way it wants?

See my point?

Millennium · Sep 9, 2005, 02:16 PM

Originally Posted by mdc

i'm not away of any other windows applications that are like that.

Netscape 8.0 (which is Windows-only) does it this way too, but I haven't seen any other apps that do it either. There are a few which put the menubar at the top of the screen when you've maximized the window (I believe WiMP does this), but that's as close as I've seen other than NS8.

Maybe it's going to become the new fashion among app developers, though. Then Windows users can finally have the menubar where it belongs

andreas_g4 · Sep 9, 2005, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

What do you mean by "the title bar can be elsewhere"? The title bar is always at the top of the window. That's a consistent position.

The title bar can be elsewhere bacause a window can be elsewhere. If there's only one window open, no big deal. But in a messy environment it sure is time consuming to locate the bar, especially if Vista has this awful lot of transparency in it's final release.

tooki · Sep 9, 2005, 07:09 PM

Mac OS X apps may have different looks, but the functions are in predictable places. Of course, the Mac's the only OS to place menu bars in the one place they belong: at the very edge of the screen (no border!!!!). (See Fitts' Law.)

tooki

Tesseract · Sep 9, 2005, 07:13 PM

Originally Posted by tooki

Mac OS X apps may have different looks, but the functions are in predictable places. Of course, the Mac's the only OS to place menu bars in the one place they belong: at the very edge of the screen (no border!!!!). (See Fitts' Law.)

In KDE (and perhaps GNOME, I don't know) you can place the menu bar at the top. So the Mac OS is not the "only" GUI to do it that way.

budster101 · Sep 9, 2005, 07:18 PM

It's just the best.

TETENAL · Sep 9, 2005, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by Tesseract

In KDE (and perhaps GNOME, I don't know) you can place the menu bar at the top. So the Mac OS is not the "only" GUI to do it that way.

I haven't used KDE or GNOME, but the likely difference is that a menu in such an environment would switch the menus more often (for each window switch) while on Mac OS the menu is constant for the whole application and only changes for application switches. So on a Mac the top menu is more constant and predictable which is a good thing.

For very large screens like there are these days I think the top menu is not ideal and it's advantage is not a much as it used to be. As you can see since Apple is working against that by adding toolbars and action menus to the windows.

tooki · Sep 9, 2005, 07:25 PM

Originally Posted by Tesseract

In KDE (and perhaps GNOME, I don't know) you can place the menu bar at the top. So the Mac OS is not the "only" GUI to do it that way.

You missed my point: on the Mac, unless you go to tremendous effort, you can't place the menu bar anywhere but the optimal location. On KDE and Gnome, you have to go through extra machinations to put the menu bar where it belongs -- the default is, well, lousy. Add to that that most open-source developers have very naïve or warped views on usability, and you get a recipe for disaster.

tooki

tooki · Sep 9, 2005, 07:28 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

For very large screens like there are these days I think the top menu is not ideal and it's advantage is not a much as it used to be.

That's really not true. Provided that you have an effective acceleration curve, you just whack the pointer towards the top, where the pointer will be restrained. There are no such restraints on any control that's not at the edge, so you will over- or undershoot.

Usability studies have measured this, and found that fast-but-imprecise movement (as done when seeking the menu bar) is faster than slow-but-precise movement, even on big screens.

(Note that there's only one location on the screen that is easier to reach with the mouse than the edges: the current location of the pointer. Contextual menus make very much sense on large screens, and intelligent use of contextual menus should be encouraged.)

tooki

TETENAL · Sep 9, 2005, 08:42 PM

The usability studies I have heard of all very much predate large screens. And I'm not only thinking about how fast and/or precise the top menu can be reached (i. e. Fitt's Law), I'm also thinking about the mental connection that is drawn between the menu and the object that it operates on. For a large physical distance between them it gets more difficult to draw the mental connection as well.

I think it is undisputed that larger screens reduce the usability of the top menu. We just can't agree on the amount. I say that the introduction of the action menu in Tiger is a clear sign that Apple thinks it's significant.

ghporter · Sep 9, 2005, 08:46 PM

I haven't installed iTunes 5 on my PC yet-I kind of have too much of a life going on right now to bother with it. But while I don't think it's a problem, I will have to see whether I like it or not. Either way, it's how I'll have to use iTunes on my PC, so I'll have to live with it.

I have pretty extensive experience with Windows, and I have never seen any other Windows app that puts the menus on the title bar. From my (limited) Windows programming experience, I think that it takes some doing to get the menus there in the first place.