15 Feb
2004
15 Feb
'04
5 p.m.
On Sun, 15 Feb 2004, Martin Fuchs wrote:
last week ;-) But that's the only point.
To attract more users we have to present them more features/functionality/
usability than Microsoft.
Actually, I have to speak up and disagree with this. One of the main
reasons I would love to move to ReactOS is to get rid of all that stuff.
Example: My girlfriend needed a new computer and was an avid NT4 user.
Sadly, the new hardware I bought for her had SATA and a bunch of other
stuff she wanted but it wouldn't work with NT4. So I had to switch her to
XP. I spent a long time trying to disable all those features and get her
back the exact NT4 look she wanted with no luck.
Microsoft being a commercial company with shareholders and a very high
pulic presence needs to constantly add new features, if nothing else to
appease their shareholders.
Even I can barely tolerate XP's interface (really perferring NT4 over
anything else). I mean, if I want to find a file I don't want the damn
paper clip (or dog or whatever the hell it is). NT4's find dialog was
elegant and simple. Now I have to have a friggin' cartoon character make
me feel like a three year old.
Feature creep is not necessary to draw in users. And the kinds of users
that want a paper clip to guide them through opening a folder shouldn't be
using ReactOS, Windows, or Mac OS X (IMHO).
Not all users are "dumb" users. They will
accomodate very fast to anything
new if it's usefull.
Exactly my point. The power users don't want a lot of that stuff. Most
power users want a consistent, simple interface that is intuitive. I don't
care if I have to mouse around a little (I'm a power user, I've mastered
the mouse); but cluttering up the interface with "easy to reach" and
redundant controls is nothing but a detraction to usability.
Let's use preprocessor directives (e.g. #ifndef
_LEAN_EXPLORER) to disable
extended functionality in explorer. This way we can maintain one codebase
to create
Ick. In my experience preprocessor directives result in code that falls
apart.