Poll: Of Qt and KDE applications on OS X, and the About/Preferences menu.

[Ian Wadham]

On 17/09/2014, at 11:52 AM, Brandon Allbery wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 7:55 PM, James Linder <jam at tigger.ws> wrote:
> all too reminescent of winders: lets see unix uses /, well fum we’ll use \
> 
> By the way, I would point out that the Mac way was the original one; per-application menubars were Microsoft being different just because Microsoft, and OSF/Motif openly imported the Microsoft Windows 3.x design and mindset without any shame (calling it "Common User Access") and it's held sway on Unixes ever since. Before that, X11 programs didn't have *any* menubars; they had menu buttons like editres (and not always at the top!), or various control-meta-cokebottle-clicks like xterm.
> 
> So it's pretty ironic that you accuse the Mac single menu bar of being like a Windows-ism, when the per-app menubar is *literally* a Windows-ism.

Heh! I can vouch for all that. I was THERE… :-) Mac OS X is about my
11th or 12th windowing system. My first was the Xerox Star workstation.

I also used the Apple Lisa around that time (early 1980s). I even visited
Xerox PARC, where windows, mouse, Ethernet, laser printing and a few
other basic things were all invented and developed. Both Bill Gates and
Steve Jobs also visited… ;-) … and the rest is history.

Apple invented the drop-down menu, on Lisa and Macintosh, which was
a great leap backwards IMHO. It made those desktops and all subsequent
desktops procedural, whereas the original Xerox desktops, invented by
Alan C. Kay, were object-oriented.  He also invented Smalltalk, from
which Objective C is descended.

On an object-oriented desktop, you first select the object you want to
do something with (file, text string, file-drawer, folder, in-tray, etc.). Then
you select a generic function (open, copy, move, properties, etc.). These
were pre-labelled keys on the keyboard. After that, you might need to
select a second object as a "destination". A "file-drawer" was equivalent
to a hard-disk, containing folders and files, and it could be physically
either local or remote.

For example, to print a file (without having to open it first), click the
document's icon, press Copy and click the icon of the printer where you
want it to go. To email it, click the Out-tray icon, instead of the printer.

Some functions and destinations, such as Properties or Out-tray, would
pop up a dialog box for whatever object you had selected (e.g. fonts, etc.
for a text string, or addressee etc. for an email).

There was really no need for menus and toolbars and all that complexity.
And the word-processing with embedded graphics was the easiest I have
ever used. Even the Cabinet Minister for our Government Department
picked it up in a flash when he came to visit and view this then-novel gear.

Of course, later desktops have reverse-fitted some of these ideas, such
as with double-click a data-file icon or drag-and-drop, but they are clumsy
and clunky as compared with the original desktop, IMHO.

Cheers, Ian W.
Venerable KDE Programmer