Posted by SpaceGirl on 08/01/07 19:56

Onideus Mad Hatter wrote:

>
> I don't, I assume that most people are like you...stupid. Hence the
> reason I spend so much time tyring to circumvent as much of the
> stupidity as possible. A screen with a 1.6 ratio might be
> semi-suitable for watching movies on your computer, but otherwise no.
> You would find that you could get a LOT more done if you had bought
> three of four SMALLER monitors (and by smaller I mean the aspect
> ratio) and then used multiple desktops. The trick of it is, and this
> is the part that most stupid people don't comprehend, is that the VAST
> majority of programs, websites, etc were ALL designed around a 1.3
> aspect ratio...so when you try viewing all that 1.3 content on a 1.6
> screen...yeah, wasted space, kludged interfaces and a completely
> unnatural user experience that retards your ability to multitask and
> get work done.
>
> I'm tellin ya, if you took even one day to switch over to a 3 to 4
> monitor setup, with the monitors aspect ratios being 1.3 you would
> NEVER want to go back to that kludgy 1.6 ratio two monitor setup that
> you've currently got.

Like I said, don't assume:

I'm a professional designer and video editor. On my left I have a
standard 19" LCD. In the centre I have a 16:10 30" Apple Cinema Display,
and on my right I have another 19" LCD rotated into portrait, all
connected to my quad-core Mac Pro. Perhaps when you come even close to
having a professional setup, you will have something to offer in this
particular discussion* :D

I also generally have at a least two VM windows open to machines
elsewhere on the network so I can test under Windows XP and IE, as well
as keeping an eye on our production servers. I also usually have a
laptop open near bye (PowerBook) that I have open with reference stuff.

>> We did a user survey about a year ago on usage of one of our sites and
>> only found about 3% of the 100,000 users we had in the snapshot
>> maximised their browsers.
>
> Well, your survey and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee, but not
> much else. I mean, you're ASSuming that the people doing the survey
> even knew what the hell "maximized" meant. I bet if you went and took
> a poll right now on the street you would find that only about 3% would
> even know what the hell you were talking about.

*We* did the survey, with a javascript sniffer. This of course did
ignore users who did not have JS enabled, but they would not be able to
use our site anyway.

> Reason number 827 why the Mac OS sucks balls.

No, we have something better. Instead of a bar that reads: "micro...
micro... micro..." we actually get a meaningful task switcher. Even
better in Leopard! But, doesn't matter that much either way, I'm just
telling you what users use. You can choose to believe it or not.

>> Not traditionally. Traditionally liquid layout refers to the content
>> reorganising itself depending how much space is available, not
>> actually expanding the content size itself.
>
> Hence the addition of "true/perfect". Liquid, as I said, refers to
> space stretching, not really stretching the actual content, where as
> "true" or "perfect" liquid means to actually stretch the content
> itself, not simply the space it's in.

No, I understand your definition, but generally for designers this is
not what it means.

>> At least with Flash you do have complete control over all of this.
>
> Yeah but most developers don't make use of it.
>

Agreed, but Flash has yet to hit that sweetspot where it's truly
accepted as a development platform. Our Java programmers just sneer at
anything with a hint of Flash :)

*YHBT
I do realise good design doesn't need fancy hardware :P I rally only use
the Mac Pro for video, photoshop and layouts in illustrator on the MP...
most of my coding a do on the Powerbook, which is a long way from being
a power machine!


--

x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

http://www.northleithmill.com

-.-

Kammy has a new home: http://www.bitesizedjapan.com

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