[clebin]

Another example of Apple's current "well it looks pretty so we'll do it" attitude. The scrollbars in the Spotlight and Sarari RSS are simply in the wrong place!

They're not next to the scrollable area, so you have a static block right (sort by date, etc) to the left of the bar. So what do Apple think they're playing at? I can't remember seeing another app do this (anyone?) for very good reasons. Websites don't work like this, and that's the only thing that some users understand.

Scrollbars are a fundamental part of the interface and they've always worked. If developers start putting them wherever they like, we're not going to know what scrolls what. Will the Group By block disappear if I scroll? Who knows.

Am I being too picky? Or did anyone else have the same "what the **** are Apple doing?" moment as me?

Chris

[Mediaman_12]

I bet that the 'page' you see for the RSS is a regular HTML page stored localy, This page will include all the information for the way the text is displayed, it will also include the right hand pannel, as Safari has good CSS support I am willing to bet that, that pannel is fixed in place using CSS, as the scroll bar is part of Safari's UI, which is controlled by the browser itself, not by the content on the page it wuld have been virtually impossible for Apple to do it any other way (aside form using Frames in the HTML, which would have been poor from an accessability standpoint).

[pat++]

200% True.

[Millennium]

All of this is true, but it's possible to set up the scrollbar to be somewhere other than the right side of the page if you write your CSS carefully, and last I checked WebCore was capable of this. To have not done this was just sloppy.

[clebin]

I know you can fix a div to the side of the web-page if you want, along with a lot of other CSS tricks. You can have purple text on a green background if you like.

It's not a question of how, but why.

[cla]

:>

Posters' tendency of lecturing as to the why's surprised me as well. I would like to see an entire forum dedicated to interface design here on macnn (so bad I would even moderate it), in which abbreviations of technical nature would be punishable... =P


Anyway,

I don't think you're being picky at all, and yes, I had the �what the **** are Apple doing� revelation.

�Scrollbars are a fundamental part of the interface� is so true - scrollbars in general are imho a fundamentally flawed part of the interface. As are all the window widgets, for they are by far the most common targets of mouse clicks, but they still require the user's full visual attention. I've never seen or heard of a study or paper addressing the frequency with which our eyes flicker to and fro during interaction. The fact that we don't even measure this ought to say something about how �far� modern interface design has advanced.

�Every single little tiny-weeny little interaction-shraction requires your visual attention. And I�m not talking peripheral attention, nooooo, then we could all go home and interact, couldn�t we? You have to actually drop focus on what you�re looking at and move your eyesight in order to find that tiny little resize button of the window. If your screen is large enough, you are even forced to move your head to find that window resizing widget. There�s more penalty: once you�re done, you must relocate that thing or text you were reading before you got the divine idea of resizing the window. The same goes for moving, scrolling, closing, zooming, panning and��

I'm curious what it would be like moving the scrollbars to the right screen-edge, always addressing the front-most window. Just as the case with the menu bar located on top of the screen, we would in theory aquire such scroll bars five times faster than conventional ones (except for the fact of reducing screen clutter). The scroll bars should also provide a cue as to when the mouse pointer is hovering on top, allowing the user to scroll content using solely peripheral vision.

I'm not saying it's a solution. I'm saying it's an interesting experiment... :>

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by clebin

I know you can fix a div to the side of the web-page if you want, along with a lot of other CSS tricks. You can have purple text on a green background if you like.

It's not a question of how, but why.

My guess is that it came down to a matter of aesthetics; they thought that putting a scrollbar in the middle of the window would look strange. That's a valid opinion, but a more consistent way of dealing with the issue would have been to not fix either pane to the side of the window, so that both would scroll. That returns the scrollbar to its usual spot without the strange visual disconnect of not having it next to a scrolling object.

[mikelauder]

Originally Posted by cla

:>
I would like to see an entire forum dedicated to interface design here on macnn (so bad I would even moderate it), in which abbreviations of technical nature would be punishable... =P

I'd also like to see a forum dedicated to interface design. It wouldn't need to be a 'WTF is that all about' type of forum; more somewhere for people to air their ideas.

[kilechki]

I was also puzzled by the strange behavior of the RSS control pane in Safari when I first used Tiger. After a week of use, however, I am glad Apple did not choose to place the scrollbars in the middle of the window. Don't forget that it would have implied to see scrollbars in the middle of Spotlight's windows also.
I find it eventually more important to be able to not have to wonder where I can find the scrollbars in each type of window. They are rightmost, that's all, and I find it logical that Apple has chosen to see the problem that way instead of sticking the scrollbars to the window specific content.

The point is that windows are just a frame mostly disconnected from the content of the window. The priority should therefore to have them all behave the same way. Ie : with the scrollbar rightmost.

I remain, however, worried by Spotlight's implementation UI-wise in Tiger.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by mikelauder

I'd also like to see a forum dedicated to interface design. It wouldn't need to be a 'WTF is that all about' type of forum; more somewhere for people to air their ideas.

Post it in the feedback forum. You've got my support; I like the idea.

[cla]

Originally Posted by clebin

Am I being too picky? Or did anyone else have the same "what the **** are Apple doing?" moment as me?

Speaking of which - I just noticed Safari tabs are actually mouse-down-sensitive...

"what the **** are Apple doing?"

=]

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by cla

Speaking of which - I just noticed Safari tabs are actually mouse-down-sensitive...

This one I actually like.

The tabs also contain a close widget. The tab switches on mouse down while the close widget only triggers on mouse up. This means that when you accidently click the close widget instead of the tab you notice because the tab isn't switching and you have a chance to move off the close widget.

[cla]

Firefox's fixed tab closing button allows a user to close several tabs by multi-clicking on the same spot, i e not having to refocus and move the mouse between the closing of multiple tabs.

Apples motivation would be to associate each close button with its tab, giving the user the choice to identify a tab by looking at the first letters of the title, and closing the tab without activating it. Only web page titles seldom reflect the content of the page, as they are too important in generating hits from search engines.

Guess I like Firefox's approach better (although a 20x20 pixel button for such an atomic and common action as closing a window is a bad idea from the start...)


I noticed another oddity today: System Preferences, Finder and Mail allows click-through. Safari and most other applications don't.

[TETENAL]

I detest Firefox' approach because you have to move the mouse back and forth and back and forth when you want to close tabs.

[Sharky K.]

Originally Posted by cla

:>

Posters' tendency of lecturing as to the why's surprised me as well. I would like to see an entire forum dedicated to interface design here on macnn (so bad I would even moderate it), in which abbreviations of technical nature would be punishable... =P


Anyway,

I don't think you're being picky at all, and yes, I had the �what the **** are Apple doing� revelation.

�Scrollbars are a fundamental part of the interface� is so true - scrollbars in general are imho a fundamentally flawed part of the interface. As are all the window widgets, for they are by far the most common targets of mouse clicks, but they still require the user's full visual attention. I've never seen or heard of a study or paper addressing the frequency with which our eyes flicker to and fro during interaction. The fact that we don't even measure this ought to say something about how �far� modern interface design has advanced.

�Every single little tiny-weeny little interaction-shraction requires your visual attention. And I�m not talking peripheral attention, nooooo, then we could all go home and interact, couldn�t we? You have to actually drop focus on what you�re looking at and move your eyesight in order to find that tiny little resize button of the window. If your screen is large enough, you are even forced to move your head to find that window resizing widget. There�s more penalty: once you�re done, you must relocate that thing or text you were reading before you got the divine idea of resizing the window. The same goes for moving, scrolling, closing, zooming, panning and��

I'm curious what it would be like moving the scrollbars to the right screen-edge, always addressing the front-most window. Just as the case with the menu bar located on top of the screen, we would in theory aquire such scroll bars five times faster than conventional ones (except for the fact of reducing screen clutter). The scroll bars should also provide a cue as to when the mouse pointer is hovering on top, allowing the user to scroll content using solely peripheral vision.

I'm not saying it's a solution. I'm saying it's an interesting experiment... :>

I got the same idea some time ago, but there is a big flaw. Monitors get larger, not in height but in width, because our visual preference. This is why a menu bar on the top is working oke also for in the future but a scrollbar on a side of a display will not work.

and I am also very interested in a UI forum!

[Sharky K.]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

I detest Firefox' approach because you have to move the mouse back and forth and back and forth when you want to close tabs.

I agree, an other point is that safari (don't know about firefox) lacks undo... It should remember history, tab usage, type undo etc... with just the undo function

[cla]

Originally Posted by Sharky K.

I got the same idea some time ago, but there is a big flaw. Monitors get larger, not in height but in width, because our visual preference. This is why a menu bar on the top is working oke also for in the future but a scrollbar on a side of a display will not work.

True, to some extent. A menu bar on top still has a horizontal alignment (left), a fact Apples 30" screen constantly reminds us of. :>

Before monitors get TOO big, I think there's still a lot to be done input device-vise:
http://www.re-pdf.com/?f=761&x=2af8a...b539005f14ad30 (PDF)
(skip p. 3, it's a bit out of scope and I'm considering removing it entirely)

[Sharky K.]

Originally Posted by cla

True, to some extent. A menu bar on top still has a horizontal alignment (left), a fact Apples 30" screen constantly reminds us of. :>

Before monitors get TOO big, I think there's still a lot to be done input device-vise:
http://www.re-pdf.com/?f=761&x=2af8a...b539005f14ad30 (PDF)
(skip p. 3, it's a bit out of scope and I'm considering removing it entirely)

I know fitt's law

[cla]

It wasn't meant to teach people about Fittz' law - I just didn't want to exclude people who never heard of it... =]

[Sharky K.]

Originally Posted by cla

It wasn't meant to teach people about Fittz' law - I just didn't want to exclude people who never heard of it... =]

Studying Industrial Design with much interest in UI.

[themexican]

bothered by safari's rss, just use netnewswire... it's better

[:dragonflypro:]

I am odd out, I guess

I like the stationary menu. It is a big web page gripe of mine that CSS solves, as they have done here. If you are in a page 75 articles long, scrolling to the top for menu selection is a pain.

The search and length functions are always within reach.

And the scroll between areas would look like nasty frame voodoo.

The solution is a good one, IMHO.

T

[Dog Like Nature]

Also, if the stand-alone Spotlight window is too short for the right-hand menu, it too will scroll vertically. Quite funky when a long list of hits is also scrolling! Try it!

[sniffer]

Omg. ^^ That's pretty confusing. Not to forget the stand alone spotlight window isn't attached to any application..

[cla]

Originally Posted by :dragonflypro:

I am odd out, I guess

I like the stationary menu.

Not at all you're not.
Having to scroll in order to get hold of a menu that affects the whole page is probably bad design in all of the books. The problem here, however, is that the scroll bars yield an unexpected behaviour due to their placement.

Having the whole page scroll would be a solution as to how the page should behave given that the scrollbars are where they are. (Umm, I'm not to proud of that last sentence.)

[monkeybrain]

I think the simplest solution would be to just have that panel that shows view options etc on the left hand side of the window (akin to iTunes, Mail, iPhoto etc). That would seem much more logical wouldn't it? I think that would be easy to do in CSS for Safari and possibly not too hard to do for the Spotlight window in Interface Builder.