Re: Default WM theme settings

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Dave Baker wrote:
> 
> Just for my two cents, I disagree.  Crux does *NOT* look like Windows.
> Crux looks like a window manager.  If I want to close a window I use the
> well established metaphor of looking for the "X" button and clicking on
> it.

In practice, people don't "look for" the "X" button at all, though, at
least after the first few times-- it quickly gets ingrained in your
motor memory, and you move the mouse there automatically.  (Also, in the
default Crux theme, you can barely read the X on the button, so even if
you did physically look for it every time, it would be a lot harder than
it needed to be).

Temporarily donning my Sun hat, most of our customers will either be
switching over from CDE or (we hope!) Windoze.  CDE users are used to
clicking on the top left button to pop up the window menu, so will close
many windows by mistake when they use the default Crux theme (I did so
for weeks until I gave up and got around to switching my theme, and many
other Sun folks report the same phenomenon).  Windoze users are used to
clicking the top right button to close their window, and will be
perturbed to see everything but the title bar disappear-- an action that
has no equivalent on Windoze at all, potentially causing no end of
confusion with people thinking their window has closed when it really
hasn't.  (I've done that a few times, but admittedly not so often as the
closing-window-by-mistake thing).

These are the main reasons we hoped the default might be changed-- to
help first time users make fewer mistakes.  I don't think is a
particularly Sun-specific issue, though, it would affect the majority of
people using GNOME for the first time.  More advanced users will soon
discover they can shift the buttons around or use a different theme if
they want to.  The MSWindows button layout isn't perfect either, as
others have pointed out, it just seemed to be the (default) choice that
would make life easier for the most users.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems