That's what that idiot Ellison was trying to sell years ago--after 30 years of putting ever more and more powerful computers on peoples' desks (and now on their laps!), he wanted to go back to time-sharing in one fell swoop! The only retrograde step that would be left is to type BASIC programs onto paper tape on war-surplus teletype machines. Just like the Good Old Days.
Google is obviously, as you say, trying the same thing now. I predict it will go over like a lead balloon this time as well, but I've been wrong before.
The absolutes don't really get anywhere as far as I'm concerned. I see it being becoming more of a hybrid system where the line goes from well defined to blurred. The things that a typical person does usually doesn't have to be tied to a specific computer. People have been doing email on web pages for maybe a decade now. Document storage and collaboration is now done using servers far away from the actual users. Going the other way, the Adobe Air and Google Gears are both going to offer the ability to run web apps locally. It's not as if there aren't problems, it will be a matter of if and when the convenience outweighs the inconvenience.
Not that it is completely google's fault. Microsoft ruined the menu bar and rather than fixing their problems, scrapped menu bars entirely. Other companies are following in their wake.
Unfortunately, no standards have arisen in this post-menu-bar wasteland. It is almost like the entire industry has forgotten what using a computer was like prior to menu bar standardization. Computer use involved a bunch of stumbling around until eventually happening upon what you're looking for. Those days are back again.
[posted from chrome on WinXP]
Edit: I'll try to stop by later to post a rant about other interface elements in chrome that google has managed to un-standardize.
How often do people use most menu options though? Most can be accessed with a condensed button dropdown or KB shortcut. Tools/Options and Bookmarks are typically the only menu options I use, and ctrl/cmd+c/v/x shortcuts are all very common, same with history, downloads, and printing.
Chrome:
However, there is the possibility of having perhaps too many options, although I like how MS has included blogged and 'send to' options with IE8b2:
Both IE 7/8, Chrome, FF, and Opera all use pretty much the same shortcuts in Windows, and Chrome and IE's menuless toolbar isn't hard at all, just a different paradigm. It would be nice if all browsers had more options, but FF (and eventually Chrome) make up for that with extensions.
I must be old school because I use the menu all the time. For bookmarks mostly but also to cut and paste words, phrases ect.. into wiki or google.
There are utilities that let you launch bookmarks without going spelunking menus. For example, I type in one to four letters related to the bookmarked page name into Quicksilver and it usually takes me where I wanted to go. I don't spend much time organizing bookmarks anymore, it only takes a second to fetch them regardless of where they are.
Another problem with the toolbar popup menu buttons is that they are located on the right side of the window.
This is problematic for left-to-right languages. When the menu is invoked, the cursor is on the right side of the menu while the menu items are left justified. Users perform quicker and more accurately when mousing over the text while in the process of visually scanning the menu. With the mouse on the right side of the menu, it isn't possible to perform this action with only a downward motion of the mouse. Instead users are forced to make a horizontal correction in the midst of what would of otherwise have been a relatively mindless beginning of the downward motion.
Perhaps menus are now so common that the reasons for their current standardized design have been forgotten.
Another problem with the toolbar popup menu buttons is that they are located on the right side of the window.
This is problematic for left-to-right languages. When the menu is invoked, the cursor is on the right side of the menu while the menu items are left justified. Users perform quicker and more accurately when mousing over the text while in the process of visually scanning the menu. With the mouse on the right side of the menu, it isn't possible to perform this action with only a downward motion of the mouse. Instead users are forced to make a horizontal correction in the midst of what would of otherwise have been a relatively mindless beginning of the downward motion.
Perhaps menus are now so common that the reasons for their current standardized design have been forgotten.
But on OSX, you'll always have a menu bar, because it's always on the top of the screen. In the OSX version, Google can't remove the menu bar, unless they plan on running it in full screen or have just something blank. And Google has also said that each version is getting customized for their respective OS', although with Linux that could mean lots of things.
Additionally, I wouldn't know how Chrome handles languages like Hebrew, without installing that version, but you might be able to, and try it out, although when I look at the Google homepage in Hebrew, they seem to know about the right to left problem.
So basically what you are saying is that the fact that all automobiles use steering wheels, instead of some using wheels and some using joysticks and some using head mounted displays is detrimental to the future of the auto industry. Sometimes standards are a good thing.
No, No, that is not at all what I said. That's actually the worst attempt at a relevant analogy I've seen in a while. And as I said in my previous post, you aren't understanding the concept of an "open standard". A 'standard' is created EXPLICITLY so that multiple interoperable implementations can exist. If only one implementation existed why would you even need to create a "standard"?
If you want an automobile analogy, let me give it a shot.
Think of a website as a car. The HTML/CSS/Javascript code is the blueprint for constructing that car. "Web Standards" would be the drafting rules that specify the format of the blueprints so the manufacturing plant (browser rendering engine) can interpret them correctly and understand how all the components fits together.
When the design is completed and the vehicle is ready to be built, the design engineer (web developer) gives the blueprints (HTML/CSS/Javascript) to the manufacturer (browser rendering engine). If the design engineer followed the proper format for creating the blueprints (web standards), then the manufacturer (rendering engine) will know the exact dimensions and placement of the components and therefore what the car should look like.
Now, every manufacturer (rendering engine) is different and they all have their own methods and techniques for actually constructing the automobile. Some of them may take a modular approach and assemble different sections of the vehicle on automated assembly lines. Other manufacturers may use many small teams of factory workers that assemble a complete car by hand. But no matter who does the job or how the actual vehicles get constructed, they will *always* come out exactly the same because they all follow the same standards.
We aren't getting any AI articles on how Chrome is doing in the wild. I know it's for Windows only right now, but the use of WebKit makes it important for everyone that uses Safari or any other WebKit-based browser.
The Ars article below has some interesting stats about Chrome on their site. While not indicative of the internet as a whole, it does show an adoption rate among technically inclined Windows users and does give WebKit a higher percentage than IE, making its non-compliant Trident engine the 3rd most common browser on their site
It seems obvious that WebKit will be as widely considered as FF by developers in the coming yers and that MS will have to speed up IE8's compliance.
Comments
That's what that idiot Ellison was trying to sell years ago--after 30 years of putting ever more and more powerful computers on peoples' desks (and now on their laps!), he wanted to go back to time-sharing in one fell swoop! The only retrograde step that would be left is to type BASIC programs onto paper tape on war-surplus teletype machines. Just like the Good Old Days.
Google is obviously, as you say, trying the same thing now. I predict it will go over like a lead balloon this time as well, but I've been wrong before.
The absolutes don't really get anywhere as far as I'm concerned. I see it being becoming more of a hybrid system where the line goes from well defined to blurred. The things that a typical person does usually doesn't have to be tied to a specific computer. People have been doing email on web pages for maybe a decade now. Document storage and collaboration is now done using servers far away from the actual users. Going the other way, the Adobe Air and Google Gears are both going to offer the ability to run web apps locally. It's not as if there aren't problems, it will be a matter of if and when the convenience outweighs the inconvenience.
My take on chrome...
Nice technical design but a usability nightmare.
Not that it is completely google's fault. Microsoft ruined the menu bar and rather than fixing their problems, scrapped menu bars entirely. Other companies are following in their wake.
Unfortunately, no standards have arisen in this post-menu-bar wasteland. It is almost like the entire industry has forgotten what using a computer was like prior to menu bar standardization. Computer use involved a bunch of stumbling around until eventually happening upon what you're looking for. Those days are back again.
[posted from chrome on WinXP]
Edit: I'll try to stop by later to post a rant about other interface elements in chrome that google has managed to un-standardize.
How often do people use most menu options though? Most can be accessed with a condensed button dropdown or KB shortcut. Tools/Options and Bookmarks are typically the only menu options I use, and ctrl/cmd+c/v/x shortcuts are all very common, same with history, downloads, and printing.
Chrome:
However, there is the possibility of having perhaps too many options, although I like how MS has included blogged and 'send to' options with IE8b2:
Both IE 7/8, Chrome, FF, and Opera all use pretty much the same shortcuts in Windows, and Chrome and IE's menuless toolbar isn't hard at all, just a different paradigm. It would be nice if all browsers had more options, but FF (and eventually Chrome) make up for that with extensions.
How often do people use most menu options though? .
I must be old school because I use the menu all the time. For bookmarks mostly but also to cut and paste words, phrases ect.. into wiki or google.
I must be old school because I use the menu all the time. For bookmarks mostly but also to cut and paste words, phrases ect.. into wiki or google.
Better get to use to Control+X, Control+C, Control+V in Windows and Command+X, Command+C, Command+V in OS X.
I must be old school because I use the menu all the time. For bookmarks mostly but also to cut and paste words, phrases ect.. into wiki or google.
There are utilities that let you launch bookmarks without going spelunking menus. For example, I type in one to four letters related to the bookmarked page name into Quicksilver and it usually takes me where I wanted to go. I don't spend much time organizing bookmarks anymore, it only takes a second to fetch them regardless of where they are.
RIP, Shafari.
-or-
Hello, Safari. Thank Google for making WebKit a popular browser engine.
-or-
Hello, Safari. Thank Google for making WebKit a popular browser engine.
Haha, well said.
This is problematic for left-to-right languages. When the menu is invoked, the cursor is on the right side of the menu while the menu items are left justified. Users perform quicker and more accurately when mousing over the text while in the process of visually scanning the menu. With the mouse on the right side of the menu, it isn't possible to perform this action with only a downward motion of the mouse. Instead users are forced to make a horizontal correction in the midst of what would of otherwise have been a relatively mindless beginning of the downward motion.
Perhaps menus are now so common that the reasons for their current standardized design have been forgotten.
Another problem with the toolbar popup menu buttons is that they are located on the right side of the window.
This is problematic for left-to-right languages. When the menu is invoked, the cursor is on the right side of the menu while the menu items are left justified. Users perform quicker and more accurately when mousing over the text while in the process of visually scanning the menu. With the mouse on the right side of the menu, it isn't possible to perform this action with only a downward motion of the mouse. Instead users are forced to make a horizontal correction in the midst of what would of otherwise have been a relatively mindless beginning of the downward motion.
Perhaps menus are now so common that the reasons for their current standardized design have been forgotten.
But on OSX, you'll always have a menu bar, because it's always on the top of the screen. In the OSX version, Google can't remove the menu bar, unless they plan on running it in full screen or have just something blank. And Google has also said that each version is getting customized for their respective OS', although with Linux that could mean lots of things.
Additionally, I wouldn't know how Chrome handles languages like Hebrew, without installing that version, but you might be able to, and try it out, although when I look at the Google homepage in Hebrew, they seem to know about the right to left problem.
http://www.google.co.il/
So basically what you are saying is that the fact that all automobiles use steering wheels, instead of some using wheels and some using joysticks and some using head mounted displays is detrimental to the future of the auto industry.
No, No, that is not at all what I said. That's actually the worst attempt at a relevant analogy I've seen in a while. And as I said in my previous post, you aren't understanding the concept of an "open standard". A 'standard' is created EXPLICITLY so that multiple interoperable implementations can exist. If only one implementation existed why would you even need to create a "standard"?
If you want an automobile analogy, let me give it a shot.
Think of a website as a car. The HTML/CSS/Javascript code is the blueprint for constructing that car. "Web Standards" would be the drafting rules that specify the format of the blueprints so the manufacturing plant (browser rendering engine) can interpret them correctly and understand how all the components fits together.
When the design is completed and the vehicle is ready to be built, the design engineer (web developer) gives the blueprints (HTML/CSS/Javascript) to the manufacturer (browser rendering engine). If the design engineer followed the proper format for creating the blueprints (web standards), then the manufacturer (rendering engine) will know the exact dimensions and placement of the components and therefore what the car should look like.
Now, every manufacturer (rendering engine) is different and they all have their own methods and techniques for actually constructing the automobile. Some of them may take a modular approach and assemble different sections of the vehicle on automated assembly lines. Other manufacturers may use many small teams of factory workers that assemble a complete car by hand. But no matter who does the job or how the actual vehicles get constructed, they will *always* come out exactly the same because they all follow the same standards.
The Ars article below has some interesting stats about Chrome on their site. While not indicative of the internet as a whole, it does show an adoption rate among technically inclined Windows users and does give WebKit a higher percentage than IE, making its non-compliant Trident engine the 3rd most common browser on their site
It seems obvious that WebKit will be as widely considered as FF by developers in the coming yers and that MS will have to speed up IE8's compliance.