Re: stacked buttons and address bar... why?

[Matthew Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

Em 21 Jul, 2005, às 8:34 AM, Reinout van Schouwen escreveu:
> ...
> Welcome to this list. If I may ask, is your reason for posting here to 
> provide constructive criticism, or just to spout derogatory remarks? 
> If it is the former, you may want to re-think the tone of your 
> sentences.

That someone is derogatory does not necessarily mean they're wrong. 
(Though as I know from experience, it's unproductive, since it 
naturally makes people more likely to think you're wrong, and more 
likely to disagree with you even if they think you're right.)

> As for the buttons on the main toolbar: in the way Epiphany is 
> designed to be used, the Bookmarks editor and the History window play 
> a prominent role.

Is "the way Epiphany is designed to be used" documented anywhere? I 
find it quite frustrating that I have to open the History window so 
often, for example, instead of using the Go menu. Why doesn't the Go 
menu contain a global history, like it does in Firefox and MSIE/Mac and 
like the History menu does in Safari?

> And you may not search webpages often, but others do, and the Find 
> button is the quickest way to do it when one is not familiar with the 
> keyboard shortcuts.

At the expense of preventing them from learning the keyboard shortcut. 
(The "Go" button has the same problem.)

>  As for the Homepage button, I don't really know how often it is used 
> generally - but arguably more often than the Forward button, that you 
> don't seem to think of as "wasted space".

What do people use home pages for? Have there been any studies on this?

> >  Did Netscape and Microsoft really get it right then with their 
> > original browser designs?

"We always figured there'd be a much more sophisticated way of 
navigating, but no one ever came up with it. Things like the Back and 
forward button, we never intended that to be a permanent part of the 
interface." <http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,57661,00.html>

(IMHO, any browser with Back and Forward buttons doesn't fulfil 
Epiphany's claim of "the simplest interface possible for a browser".)

> One design doesn't fit all. That's why you can reorganize the Epiphany 
> toolbar to your hearts' content with the toolbar editor (under the 
> Edit menu).
>
> >  It seems to me that the Safari/Firefox GUI is more concise _and_ 
> > easier to use.
>
> Excuse me, but the user interfaces of Safari and Firefox are not 
> exactly identical.

The toolbars of Safari and Firefox are substantially similar, much more 
similar to each other than either of them and Epiphany. The noticable 
common features are (1) a single toolbar by default, and (2) separate 
address and search fields.

> And if you think the Firefox GUI is concise, you probably never saw 
> its Preferences window.

True. :-)

> >  Epiphany's default GUI is drawn out and verbose, like a "learn to 
> > program" book that describes how to use a mouse and what a CPU is in 
> > chapter 1.
>
> Sounds exactly like the impression it *should* make on first time 
> users!
> ...

Really? Would it perhaps be better if the browser tried as hard as 
possible to stay out of the way?

--
Matthew Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/