REALbasic vs. Revolution

Lorin Rivers lrivers at realsoftware.com
Fri Oct 11 15:45:01 EDT 2002


On 10/11/02 11:01 AM, Rob Cozens <rcozens at pon.net> wrote:

>> For me, (and recall I'm not a professional developer), there is a
>> difference between apps that all look identical (which is what everything
>> done in VB tends to be) and apps which merely leverage a
>> previously-learned UI, consistent adherence to which is often touted as a
>> learning advantage.
> 
> Judy, et al:
> 
> That seems to be part of Apple's marketing hype since the first
> release of Mac OS.  And, frankly, there might have been good reason
> for it initially: the mouse & pull-down-&-select were new to the
> industry, so guidelines on how to use them helped show the way.
> 
> But when it gets to the point that reviewers ding Revolution (or any
> other application) because Quit is under the File menu (where it was
> "supposed" to be in OS 9) instead of the Applications menu (which
> Apple has now decreed as the place Quit is "supposed" to be), it
> reaches a level of pedantic absurdity.

I understand that people agree with you, but I find non-conforming UI to be
somewhat jarring when I encounter it. That sometimes includes Cocoa apps,
because Carbon apps are more "Mac like" to me, see the difference between
apps created using either API regarding text clipping and proxy icon
behaviors.

I think that non-standard UI sometimes makes sense--Games, truly unique apps
such as Bryce and others of that ilk. The easier a new user can understand
what is where in your app, the better off they (and by extension you) will
be.

This is where the Mac shines versus Windows, in my opinion.
-- 
Lorin Rivers                      mailto:lrivers at realsoftware.com
Vice President of Marketing       512.328.REAL (7325) x712 v
REAL Software                     512.328.7372 f
1705 South Capital of Texas Hwy.  http://www.realsoftware.com
Suite 310                         REALbasic: the powerful, easy-to-use
Austin, Texas 78746               tool for creating your own software
                                  for Macintosh, Mac OS X, and Windows.




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