Favourite UI

NormDroid

Out of all the many applications and utilities out there, whats you favourite UI. Here's some to got at Visio ZoneAlarm VS.NET MapPoint WebZip Bryce PhotoShop Norm Almond Chief Technical Architect FS Walker Hughes Limited

James Spibey

I quite dig the media players. In particular:- - Sonique (this UI is fantastic) - Winamp (Less technologically good UI but more user friendly) - Quintessential Player (Winamp Clone but better UI) James

Paul Watson

Well I would not rate Visio's (as in 2002/10 version) interface highly. There are many quirks and things in it that are different to the Office standard (obviously because Visio used to be made by another company that MS bought out). In particular shortcut and keyboard-mouse combinations are a pain. VS.NET is bloody good though, very impressed. Other programmes of note are: - Macromedia Fireworks - Outlook - MSN Messenger (while I still prefer ICQ's features it has become cluttered while MSN is so clean and simple) - Code Project Forums (that pop-up message thing rules) Programmes I dont like are: - Windows Media Player - ICQ - Amazon.com (while not a programme) sucks like hell - Microsoft Project - PaintShop Pro (used to be my favourite paint package till it got unnecesaraly complicated!) - Go!Zilla is the absolute pits, nothing worse - Adobe Acrobat (I drag when i want to select and vice versa, irritating) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible." - Chretien Malesherbes

Tomasz Sowinski

I'm going in a different direction; here are my 'least favourite' UIs: ZoneAlarm - UI sucks big time. Is this program designed to be used in a kindergarten? PhotoShop - UI is too Mac-like. And you can't select script (like Eastern European) when selecting a font. MS Word 2000 - WTF they removed MDI? POVRay - each time you render, the output window gets focus, you can't go back to editor without mouse action. If you switch "get focus on creation" option off, output window will be beneath the main one. GSView (viewer that comes with GhostScript) - just plain sucks. And each program that uses custom controls (like bitmapped buttons) just because it was cool to get one from CodeProject :-D Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

Kastellanos Nikos

also take a look at "Advanced call center" It's an answering machine, record conversations, live voice notes, caller id reports, etc. The main window looks like a big LCD screen, with nice icons. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Memory leaks is the price we pay \0 01234567890123456789012345678901234

Luis Barreira

You shold check the "Interface Hall of Shame" on http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm

Tomasz Sowinski

I know this side; unfortunately it haven't been updated since mid-2000. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

Chris Maunder

Macromedia Fireworks Yeah - this is cool Outlook Mmmmmm. Personally I find it way too convoluted. Setting simple things take an inordinate number of steps, tabs, popup dialogs, sub dialogs and list controls to navigate and hunt through. Major UI wishes for Outlook: - if a folder contains a box that gets a new message, then that folder's label should be shown in bold. - The ability to show only new messages since a particular date - MSN Messenger (while I still prefer ICQ's features it has become cluttered while MSN is so clean and simple) :eek: Maybe if they allowed us to specify more 'away' messages ('Outside catching some rays in the deck chair', 'Out at a bar annoying people', 'Washing the cat') and maybe if they archived the conversations (a la ICQ) then it would be nicer. - Code Project Forums (that pop-up message thing rules) Your cheque's in the mail. cheers, Chris Maunder (CodeProject)

Paul Watson

with MSN my main gripes are: - No history of messages - Can't leave a message with a friend who is offline (using Hotmail does not count) - No way to format your messages nicely, i.e. bold a certain word, or italics etc. Outlook. I know what you mean but I have customised the whole thing so much that everything I ever need is a click or two away. The customisable toolbars are great. ..."Your cheque's in the mail."... lol glad to see proper spelling there, I did not comment on an earlier post were you slipped into using "check". ;P But I really do like CPs forums. I even suggested to a client that they have a look at them to see how a forum should be done. They liked them so much they want most of the features in their forum. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible." - Chretien Malesherbes

David Wulff

>> Go!Zilla is the absolute pits, nothing worse I have to agree on that. I am stuck an older version because I refuse to upgrade to the latest piece of sh*te. :( The took a perfectly good product and turned it into the equivalent of WinAmp for resuming downloads. WHY? What's the deal with skins anyway?

:bob: -=:bob:=-

David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com

James Spibey

I'd love MSN Messenger if our poxy corporate firewall let me use it :mad: It seems that on our network they only keep ports 21 and 80 open on the firewall thus stopping me using a whole host of funky programs like messenger and Kazaa. I had the same problem with Realplayer but they have an option now to send over http on port 80. Would it be theoretically possible for messenger to do this? James Spibey Well cover me in honey and throw me to the lesbians!

Steven Hicks n 1

I agree that the UI of Win Media Player is bad. I can't stand them, they take up resources and memory. -Steven Visit Ltpb.8m.com Surf the web faster than ever: http://www.404Browser.com

Chris Meech

I think you can, sorta. In Messenger when you specify to use HTTP on port 80, you also have to specify the IP of a proxy. This is somewhat cloudy for me though. BTW. Your sig, I love it. LOL :-D :-D Where is it from? Chris

James Spibey

Actually, you are right. I really should look through the options before I post messages like that :-D It still doesn't work though. I just get 'Service not Responding' or something. The sig's from a famous porn film - 'Busty Brenda's Bollock Bonanza'. (That was a joke by the way. It's great being on a site with almost no women, I can get away with shit like this) (Ha, Chris' smut filter doesn't know Bollock. Fantastic. Wonder if I can get away with Wanker?) James Spibey Well cover me in honey and throw me to the lesbians!

Michael Dunn

My faves: WinAmp (simple and efficient) VC 6 (way better and less cluttered than VS.NET) WinZip (again, simple and efficient) Norton AntiVirus 2000/2001 (and not just 'cause I worked on them) ;) --Mike-- http://home.inreach.com/mdunn/ :love: your :bob: with :vegemite: and :beer:

Farhan Noor Qureshi

James, I am behind a firewall just like yours that does not let us open any port other than 80 so I use HTTP Tunnel to use MSN messenger. Try it. :) ;) ;P :-D :cool: Farhan Noor Qureshi

Andrew Peace

Hi, I have to say, the new VS.NET UI does grow on you - I find I'd rather work with that now than the old VC6 interface - particularly the debugger. WinZip - yes, a good user interface. There is only one thing about WinZip that gets me; why do they have a 'Path' column instead of having an Explorer-like folder tree?? Mad! NAV - also agree, 2000 was great and the small modifications in 2001 add the finishing touches. I like the way that other programs from the suite integrate into the same UI. I'm gonna have to upgrade to 2002 sometime soon.... I'm gonna have to disagree on you about WinAmp - I HATE that user interface! I have bad eyesight and it is a Terrible program to use - I just stick to Media Player now in fact. I know there's the Double Size option but I don't like that either - it just make the whole thing look ugly. I also like the Easy CD 4 user interface but I dislike version 5 - I saw it at a friend's house and it immediately give me the 'don't upgrade to this' feeling. There's also another program I have used in the past called Sibelius for composing music which I quite liked even though it was a bit awkward in places. The thing that annoyed me about that was the bitmaps they insisted on placing behind all the dialogs. Thankfully you could turn them off. -- Andrew.

Mike Nordell

Command & Conquer D.I.D's F22 ADF/Total Air War (TAW) Deus Ex The Amiga boot-screen (where I could select what partition to boot) edit.com MSVC 4.x The MSDN viewer in MSVC4.x, NT4 Win95/NT4 Explorer (.exe - not IExplorer) Older Visio Older Excel Older MSPaint (where you could get pixel-precision using the cursor arrows, something Microsoft removed later on - crippling the interface if you ask me). The "W95/NT4 Microsoft Mail" LightWave (only tried 5.x) Windows XP - it looks like a copy of a Maxis game! These are all chosen from an ease-of-use and speed-of-use standpoint; how much do I get done in a given time the UI. - C&C "just works". - edit.com "just works". - MSVC 4.x works much faster and more reliable than any of it's 5.x, 6.x counterparts. Not to mention that QuickMacros is slower than a dead snail in MSVC6. - MSVC4 MSDN viewer always was in context (MDI) while the MSVC6 MSDN viewer always is out of context (outside the app I need the info from - not to mention it's so dog-slow I could get a coffee-break from some searches and it's impossible to get a good clipboard copy to paste nowadays). - NT4 compared to NT5: NT5 (W2k) messed up NT4 (NewShell) UI and every system task became harder to perform. But my favorite of all times, something that has never let me down and continues to drive the computerized civilisation: The command console/TTY. It's not pretty, it's not for everyone, but for some tasks it's the most powerful way to get anything done.