Toolbar above menu is a kludge isn't it?

  • Thread starter Thread starter C. Moya
  • Start date Start date
C

C. Moya

I posted this in IE7's boards because everyone seems to hate the IE7 uweildy
toolbar. But this is a Vista design right?..... Well.... I haven't followed
Vista much (too much work)... but I will say this as a Win32 developer:

You guys aren't kidding anybody....
This Vista "glass" idea is great (I like it)... but the toolbar above the
menu bar was
NOT done for *usability* reasons. It was done because the OS can only
control (and make translucent) a windows' FRAME. The inside of a window
(a.k.a. the client area) has to be drawn by the app. But we want the
toolbars translucent right?... so make them part of the OS controlled frame.
Great! :(

This is a longstanding problem with Win32. It's why XP's Themes Manager can
do all sorts of pretty things to the FRAME but most applications (including
Office XP for some brainnumbing reason!!!) still have the same old square
NON-XP classic buttons and tabs etc inside the app itself.

In other words... the toolbar above the menu is a KLUDGE.
It's also, ugly, unweildy, and unbearably inconsistent with everything else.
Microsoft's new crop of developers wouldn't know what the word CONSISTENT
user interface meant if someone opened up a dictionary and showed it to them
(we can talk about Office 2007's illogically disparate treatment of color
schemes between apps too).
 
Personally don't like the fact that the menu bar is merged with Tabs, I
would have preferred if they could allow the user to customize this so I can
get some more tab real estate. I don't like the fact that I still have to
use either Tab list to Quick Tabs to successfully find a web page I have
opened.

I don't mind the integration of Navigation buttons, Address Bar,
Refresh/Stop and Instant Seach merged, thats probably the best part. But the
rest could have been better thought out. Especially since I am using 1024 by
768.
 
I wouldn't hate the design if it existed in a vacuum. But the new design
(toolbars in the Title frame area) is inconsistent (and wildly so) and do
not provide enough usability improvements to justify yet another awkward
hacked together paradigm. Windows has quickly become a horrible incongruous
hodge podge of interface "look and feels" and it has been to its complete
detriment.

The Office Team's insistence on making each version of their apps "stand
out" (even if that only lasts for 1 month before 3rd party control
developers mimic it and release new controls) is largely to blame. But
they're not the only ones. Microsoft needs a User Interface or "Look and
Feel" guru... a la a Steve Jobs type person... to reign in all their
managers and get this mess together.

Vista is poised to turn what has been a long standing general annoyance into
a catastrophe IMHO.
 
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