I run Linux as my primary OS for most everything. I pretty much only reboot to Win2k if I need to test something. This summer I started dogfooding Thunderbird and Firebird. I really liked the fact that I could put my personal toolbar next to my menus in Firebird since it gave me more screen space for the web. There were a number of other things about Firebird and Thunderbird that really made me enjoy using them. However, the big exception (under Linux) is that link clicks from Thunderbird to http:// URLs and the like simply wouldn't work. Those who know what I'm talking about know that it sucks ass, and it pretty much makes Thunderbird extremely painful to use for day-to-day stuff. Not good. To make matters worse, for a long time drag-n-drop didn't work in the GTK2 builds either.
So, about two months ago I switched back to Seamonkey. Amazing... I started keeping on top of my bugmail because it was so easy to flip to a bug from my inbox. But, I missed some of the cool things in Firebird and Thunderbird.
Well, today I landed a patch to fix this mess. A big thanks to bz, blizzard, and bryner for reviewing the changes. Starting with tomorrow's trunk builds (and 1.6 beta), you should finally be able to click links in Thunderbird and have them load correctly in Firebird! See bug 226071 for details. Check out tomorrow's builds, and make noise if you find problems ;-)
Posted by darin at November 20, 2003 4:27 PMSome things cannot be taught, only discovered.
Posted by: Bauer Carolyn at January 19, 2004 6:30 PMBut limit your animations to whatever is required to communicate the necessary information. Avoid annoying animations that discourage ease of use. Ask yourself, "What do I need to show the user, and what is the cleanest way possible to achieve that?" A good example is the Mail application for Mac OS X. Whenever a new message arrives, the Dock icon changes appearance to indicate a changed state.
Posted by: Thadeus at January 24, 2004 7:18 AMAt WWDC, I listened to Apple representatives make some excellent points about taking the time to build a 100%-compliant Aqua application, and I think all developers need to look beyond the code and listen to what the folks at Apple have to say
Posted by: Joan at January 24, 2004 7:18 AMBut limit your animations to whatever is required to communicate the necessary information. Avoid annoying animations that discourage ease of use. Ask yourself, "What do I need to show the user, and what is the cleanest way possible to achieve that?" A good example is the Mail application for Mac OS X. Whenever a new message arrives, the Dock icon changes appearance to indicate a changed state.
Posted by: Jasper at January 24, 2004 7:19 AMIf an application is designed well, the reward for users is that they will learn it faster, accomplish their daily tasks more easily, and have fewer questions for the help desk. As a developer of a well-designed application, your returns on that investment are more upgrade revenue, reduced tech support, better reviews, less documentation, and higher customer satisfaction. The rewards of building a good-looking Aqua application are worth taking the extra time.
Posted by: Noe at January 24, 2004 7:19 AMAdhere to Layout Guidelines. Did you leave 12 pixels between your push buttons? Does the positioning of your pop-up menus make sense, and when do you use a pop-up versus a scrolling list? Are you using the right types of buttons for the proper functions?
Posted by: Garnett at January 24, 2004 7:20 AMAdopt Sheets. I really like the use of Sheets in OS X. The use of Sheets lets me know which window my dialogue belongs to without hijacking my system.
Posted by: Martin at January 24, 2004 7:20 AMDue to the positioning of the Dock, remember that when you build an application, you have to be sure that new document window sizes and positions do not violate the Dock's space. Dock is temperamental and Dock loves his space. If you default to a window size that expands behind the dock, users will have a difficult time reaching the navigation and resize areas at the bottom of the screen. I can personally say that more than once I have been rather peeved that I couldn't get to an area of the window to resize because the default window settings always pop up behind the Dock. In addition, the new Dock in 10.1 will allow users to position their Dock location on either side of the screen as well.
Posted by: Leonard at January 24, 2004 7:20 AMYou Must Promise. To call your mother, to help old ladies cross the road, and to turn your cell phone off at the movies.
Posted by: Effemia at January 24, 2004 7:21 AMTo help you become a good Aqua citizen, Apple has created a few guidelines. I've put together a brief overview of them, and we'll be tackling many of them in the months to come.
Posted by: Ingram at January 24, 2004 7:21 AMDrawers. Similar to Sheets, this is a "child" window that gives users access to items that do not always need to be present. But when do you use a drawer and when do you use a palette?
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