ANN: Global freeware laptop diary tool in REV

[Bill Marriott]

Garrett, that wasn't harsh; that was the "Paula Abdul" review.

Now for the "Simon Cowell" review:

1) The post and the web site are the first promotional material that 
prompted me to download the application for the sole reason so that I could 
stop reading the promotional material.

2) When I opened the program, my first thought was that this "Welcome" menu 
was the most hideous stack screen I've ever seen:

http://wjm.org/linked/phen-welcome.jpg

3) I took a chance and clicked "Make New Volume" as my first click.

4) My first thought was that I was wrong. *THIS* is the most hideous stack 
screen I've ever seen:

http://wjm.org/linked/phen-diary.jpg

Aesthetic issues aside for the moment, why are you taking over my entire 
screen? Why do you have three iterations of the menu bar? Why do I have two 
confirmation dialogs of the creation of a new "Volume" when I already gave 
it a name and such?

I soon realized that this was supposed to be some kind of off-screen 
compositing. This is because I quit immediately, and relaunched (to create 
photographic evidence of the crime scene). On second launch you trim the 
visible area properly, but still place me in "kiosk" mode. If a stack is 
supposed to be open all the time throughout the day, shouldn't it be a 
little easier to switch to my email or word processor? But note, once you do 
the clipping properly your little confirmation alerts are off the visible 
area -- I couldn't click them, I had to remember they showed up and press 
Enter twice to dismiss the invisible dialogs, or else I got "beep, beep, 
beep" anywhere I clicked.

Since the title bar was still visible (you really don't have a Windows 
machine anywhere to test?) I could drag around horizontally to peek at what 
else was there. Here's something that came up:

http://wjm.org/linked/phen-oikos.jpg

Is this inspired by Microsoft Bob? Or perhaps the old Sony MagicCap? Why is 
it a Star of David? Is a Crescent Moon interface available? Given the pain, 
I think a crucifix metaphor might just work!

A couple people mentioned the issues with buttons... the myriad styles, the 
clipped text of assorted fonts, sizes and colors, the random placements, the 
lack of labels... but I think this could all be solved with a handy, 
printable quick reference guide. I've helpfully prepared one:

http://wjm.org/linked/phen-quickref.gif

Yes, I know the audience is booing and hissing now. I'm so evil.


"Garrett Hylltun" 
<garrett at paraboliclogic.com> wrote in message 
news:44944A22.7060500 at paraboliclogic.com...
> I don't want this to come across as being harsh on this program, but I did 
> see some things that really turn me off in a program.
>
> The interface is a big thing with me.  So right now my focus is on the gui 
> of the program.
[...]
> I feel bad for bringing this up because it looks like you put a lot of 
> time and effort into this.  But the interface is going to kill any hope of 
> this program being taken seriously.