I never said anything about "100% compatible behaviour". "100% software compatibility" and compatible behaviour are completely different matters. Behaviour can be completely different even though the surface would mimic windows. What I mean can be seen from my start -menu mockup. It is compatible with windows (regular windows users can handle their way around) and yet it's taking a step furter.
Behaviour in here would most likely include doing stuff the same way that you would do in windows but it really doesn't have to be carbon copy. I think no-one is aiming for that. After all, the goal is to make another windows but better, i.e. fix the errors Microsoft (might) have done.
It really doesn't matter wheter it's SDI or MDI (or anything else) as long as regular user knows how to achieve things he wants to do without reading helps or consulting someone who's familiar with ROS.
Why are the product reviewers complaining about consistency? Maybe because they know that it is reducing the usability of the UI? Like I have said many times, the users base their evaluations on subjective experience which rarely is accurate way, if any, of measuring usability and performance. Hence, they might not even realize that their workflow is being hindered.
-mikko
On 5/23/05, Patrick Mauritz oxygene@studentenbude.ath.cx wrote:
On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 11:13:14AM +0300, Mikko Tikkanen wrote:
If it does look like Windows regular users will expect it to work like Windows (hence they can immediately start using it) and they will most likely will expect to run the same software because it looks and feels like Windows.
hmm.. sounds like the reasons against swing in java-land. just that it's mostly developers whining and users using.
with a clone project, users and devs will whine - some because it's just 99% the original, others because it doesn't improve on its blueprint. one size fits all won't work.
If you aim for "100% compatible behaviour", forget it. 99% (and risking irritiations with users, because it _does_ behave different) are possible, a "different but similar" approach is also possible and can be okay with users (depending on how different it is, of course)
example to support the last one: the complete microsoft suite of applications. how many different toolkits do they use? what about color schemes? SDI vs. MDI? they're not very consistent, but the only ones I've seen complain about it are product reviewers.
patrick mauritz