Snazzy Java IP-address dialog.





  • Web UI for a WS5100, I think it was.



  • What are you talking about? I can read that perfectly fine!

    Ok, maybe only if I squint.



  •  It's a combination managment console and captcha generator.



  • TRWTF is Java's look-and-feel stuff. I've made Japa apps that look perfect on Mac but are practically unusable on Windows or Linux, or vise-versa.



  • @joemck said:

    TRWTF is Java's look-and-feel stuff. I've made Japa apps that look perfect on Mac but are practically unusable on Windows or Linux, or vise-versa.
     

    At this point in history, after 15 years of Java, I think we just need to admit that anybody who chooses to write a GUI app in Java hates their users. Sorry, but it's true... you knew going in that Java can't make a good UI, you've had 15 years of experiencing shitty Java UIs, there's really no other explanation.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @joemck said:

    TRWTF is Java's look-and-feel stuff. I've made Japa apps that look perfect on Mac but are practically unusable on Windows or Linux, or vise-versa.
     

    At this point in history, after 15 years of Java, I think we just need to admit that anybody who chooses to write a GUI app in Java hates their users. Sorry, but it's true... you knew going in that Java can't make a good UI, you've had 15 years of experiencing shitty Java UIs, there's really no other explanation.

    Maybe.  Or maybe it's because you love your users so much that you don't want them to become spoiled.  So, just a crazy, Depression-era grandfather, you deprive them of a life of comfort, to build character.



  • I'm quite sure that's some japanese insult written in Kanji there...

    @blakeyrat said:

    @joemck said:

    TRWTF is Java's look-and-feel stuff. I've made Japa apps that look perfect on Mac but are practically unusable on Windows or Linux, or vise-versa.
     

    At this point in history, after 15 years of Java, I think we just need to admit that anybody who chooses to write a GUI app in Java hates their users. Sorry, but it's true... you knew going in that Java can't make a good UI, you've had 15 years of experiencing shitty Java UIs, there's really no other explanation.

     Well, there are positive examples, like Eclipse (at least after it dragged itself to finally finish loading). I agree however, you have to try really hard to produce a non-shitty UI with java.



  • @PSWorx said:

    Well, there are positive examples, like Eclipse (at least after it dragged itself to finally finish loading). I agree however, you have to try really hard to produce a non-shitty UI with java.
     

    I have to admit I'm pretty ignorant of Eclipse. Mostly because I refuse to install Java on my computer after it got a virus from the Java plug-in a few months ago. It might be great, I dunno.

    Used to be, when I challenged people to demonstrate a Java GUI that didn't suck, they'd send me to Azureus. Which only proved that they had absolutely no idea how to judge the quality of a GUI.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Used to be, when I challenged people to demonstrate a Java GUI that didn't suck, they'd send me to Azureus. Which only proved that they had absolutely no idea how to judge the quality of a GUI.

    Azureus had a fairly mediocre GUI, but I don't know if I'd go so far as saying it was sucky.  There were a few nice things, like the "swarm" view was pretty cool, but that's just a neat feature and has nothing to do with Java.  In fact, Java is probably the reason the swarm looked like it was drawn on an NES and still felt laggy.   Of course, then it renamed itself to something else and became some kind of goddamn commerical video service or something and the last time I tried to use it I was so disgusted that I switched the uTorrent and never looked back.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @PSWorx said:
    Well, there are positive examples, like Eclipse (at least after it dragged itself to finally finish loading). I agree however, you have to try really hard to produce a non-shitty UI with java.
    I have to admit I'm pretty ignorant of Eclipse. Mostly because I refuse to install Java on my computer after it got a virus from the Java plug-in a few months ago. It might be gr

    It's like we're back in 2003!



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @PSWorx said:

    Well, there are positive examples, like Eclipse (at least after it dragged itself to finally finish loading). I agree however, you have to try really hard to produce a non-shitty UI with java.
     

    I have to admit I'm pretty ignorant of Eclipse. Mostly because I refuse to install Java on my computer after it got a virus from the Java plug-in a few months ago. It might be great, I dunno.

    Eclipse has a pretty solid UI, other than the hellishly awful configuration dialog.  Still, it makes my head hurt just thinking about trying to create such something like Eclipse in Java.  I'm not sure why Sun programmed Java's layout managers to feel hate, but I can only assume it's part of their vast plan to punish Java developers.

    On a related note, why does Netbeans look vaguely like a children's toy?



  • @derula said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @PSWorx said:
    Well, there are positive examples, like Eclipse (at least after it dragged itself to finally finish loading). I agree however, you have to try really hard to produce a non-shitty UI with java.
    I have to admit I'm pretty ignorant of Eclipse. Mostly because I refuse to install Java on my computer after it got a virus from the Java plug-in a few months ago. It might be gr

    It's like we're back in 2003!

    You goddamn whore.



  • @bstorer said:

    On a related note, why does Netbeans look vaguely like a children's toy?

    To me, it looks more like an editor written entirely in HTML, CSS and Javascript.  You know, the kind of thing that's impressive because of the sheer, slavish devotion that went into crafting such a monstrosity.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @bstorer said:

    On a related note, why does Netbeans look vaguely like a children's toy?

    To me, it looks more like an editor written entirely in HTML, CSS and Javascript.  You know, the kind of thing that's impressive because of the sheer, slavish devotion that went into crafting such a monstrosity.

     

    I actually love NetBeans for PHP... Eclipse plain sucks, while NetBeans will do integrated PHPdoc (think javadoc) and NATIVE SVN, thank you very much.

    (*ducks*)



  • @bezking said:

     

    I actually love NetBeans for PHP... Eclipse plain sucks, while NetBeans will do integrated PHPdoc (think javadoc) and NATIVE SVN, thank you very much.

    Don't get me wrong, I actually like Netbeans, especially for JRuby.  But I always feel like one of the buttons should inform me that the cow says "moo."


  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @derula said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @PSWorx said:
    Well, there are positive examples, like Eclipse (at least after it dragged itself to finally finish loading). I agree however, you have to try really hard to produce a non-shitty UI with java.
    I have to admit I'm pretty ignorant of Eclipse. Mostly because I refuse to install Java on my computer after it got a virus from the Java plug-in a few months ago. It might be gr

    It's like we're back in 2003!

    You goddamn whore.

     

    The reason people don't get viruses any more is because they're smart enough to no longer install Java. Java on the web never recovered after Microsoft ditched it when XP came out, and normal people don't need things like Eclipse or Netbeans.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @joemck said:

    TRWTF is Java's look-and-feel stuff. I've made Japa apps that look perfect on Mac but are practically unusable on Windows or Linux, or vise-versa.
     

    At this point in history, after 15 years of Java, I think we just need to admit that anybody who chooses to write a GUI app in Java hates their users. Sorry, but it's true... you knew going in that Java can't make a good UI, you've had 15 years of experiencing shitty Java UIs, there's really no other explanation.

    And this is the real WTF. It basically means that you nowadays only find Java in the backoffice and other places were there is no need for a GUI. I'm not sure what SUN/Oracle wants with Java, but unless you need something really portable, and don't care about the GUI, you'll use something else than Java.*

    I find that for getting people hooked on programming, it helps if it's easy to make a decent GUI.

     

    *) Or you've sold your soul to the devil some years ago and now can't back out of the contract.

     



  • @blakeyrat said:

    The reason people don't get viruses any more is because they're smart enough to no longer install Java. Java on the web never recovered after Microsoft ditched it when XP came out, and normal people don't need things like Eclipse or Netbeans.

    Who gives a shit about that?  Stop talking.  He posted an xkcd, goddammit.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @joemck said:

    TRWTF is Java's look-and-feel stuff. I've made Japa apps that look perfect on Mac but are practically unusable on Windows or Linux, or vise-versa.
     

    At this point in history, after 15 years of Java, I think we just need to admit that anybody who chooses to write a GUI app in Java hates their users.

     

    I've a long history of writing GUI apps in Java. On the other hand, that doesn't disprove your point.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @PSWorx said:
    Well, there are positive examples, like Eclipse (at least after it dragged itself to finally finish loading). I agree however, you have to try really hard to produce a non-shitty UI with java.

    ...when I challenged people to demonstrate a Java GUI that didn't suck, they'd send me to Azureus.

    Both Azureus and Eclipse use SWT for their GUI. It's basically a library that wraps the native widgets of the OS it is running on (Windows, GTK etc). Most other Java programs use Swing which is the native Java GUI library. Swing programs can change the look-and-feel to better match the OS it is running on but it still won't look 100% right; for example the Open/Save dialog in Swing is complete garbage compared to the standard Windows ones.

    The funny thing is that before Swing Java programs used AWT which was also a wrapper around native widgets.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    In fact, Java is probably the reason the swarm looked like it was drawn on an NES and still felt laggy.   Of course, then it renamed itself to something else and became some kind of goddamn commerical video service or something and the last time I tried to use it I was so disgusted that I switched the uTorrent and never looked back.
     

    This is like, the exact reason I went for uTorrent.

    I miss the block schema of Vuzeureus, though. The pieces progress bars and file bars just aren't the same. :\

    A few years back I also tried this editor called "jEdit". It had a horrible interface feel, and I ditched it on that reason alone. Azureus had a proper interface. I'm not sure why it's bitch-worthy.



  • @RogerWilco said:

    I'm not sure what SUN/Oracle wants with Java, but unless you need something really portable, and don't care about the GUI, you'll use something else than Java.
    Yeah, like Clojure, or Scala...

    *ducks*



  • @SlyEcho said:

    Both Azureus and Eclipse use SWT for their GUI. It's basically a library that wraps the native widgets of the OS it is running on (Windows, GTK etc).
    And they're still not 100%:




  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Who gives a shit about that?  Stop talking.  He posted an xkcd, goddammit.
    Dammit, why don't more people post comics that don't suck, like Axe Cop, or that one with all the dicks that dhromed loves so much?



  • It looks like ass-- nice blue gradient in the toolbars, except where the horrible 1995 grey overwrites it for no reason.(Oh I guess there's a "dramatic swoosh" there or whatever the fuck that thing is.) Actually the blue gradient is entirely hit-and-miss: "Hey guys I know you wanted a blue gradient, but... eh it's kind of hard because it requires me to do more stuff. I got it like... I dunno... 60-70% blue." "Good enough! We don't give a shit!"

    The icons are completely non-descriptive... if your icon is a green circle with a C in it and a plus, just write the word out guys! How come the "Palette" panel/whatever looks like the window title from Mac OS 8.5 when all the others have a greyscale gradient background? Why are all the UI widgets prefaced with J? To indicate that they're in Java? Because we can probably just take that for granted, guys.

    It's also good to know that the window being designed apparently chucks *all* UI appearances out the window in favor of looking like Solaris circa 1995. See the always-underlined menu titles? The whole thing looks like an app that fell through a time portal from the mid-90s and some amateur designer decided to "pretty it up". If that's what Eclipse looks like, I'm glad I've never used it. If that project has someone listed as "UI lead" or "usability lead", I think it's probably legal in most juristictions to slap them.

    It's good to see that Java is represented by two discolored testicles, a crosshair, and the letter J though. That seems appropriate somehow.



  • Oh wow.

    And I just noticed that the background color for that text field is listed as "white", not something like, "OS Default Text Control Background." Not only is that UI crap, but the designer doesn't understand the concept of "color schemes." No wonder Java apps always suck.

    BTW, in case it wasn't obvious, the problem with the designed window showing up as a completely different theme than the theme you're developing for is that you can't ever get the margins right. In that Solaris theme, it basically has no margins at all... if you compiled that app for Windows, suddenly that window would look like ass and your users would be asking, "hey where's the margins?" A good feature would be able to switch the theme of the designer, so that it matches the environments you're building for (RealBasic used to have this, for example.) Second to that, show the theme that the OS the designer itself is running in (Visual Studio does this). But don't just pull some new theme nobody uses out of your ass and show that, thinking it's "good enough."



  • @bstorer said:

    comics that don't suck, like Axe Cop
     

    Axe Cop is the bomdiggy.

     

    Among other bomdiggy things are:

    - goats (.com)

    I would quote more webcomix, but those are pussy things that I also enjoy much, and not feasible for posting on this testosterone-infused board.

     



  • @bstorer said:

    @SlyEcho said:
    Both Azureus and Eclipse use SWT for their GUI. It's basically a library that wraps the native widgets of the OS it is running on (Windows, GTK etc).
    And they're still not 100%:
     

    I'm not sure why you posted a screenshot that's essentially 0%.

     

    Or am I deaf to the wooshing sound?



  • Why are there 2 arrows on one end of the scroll bar, but only one arrow on the other end of the scroll bar? Shouldn't there either be only one arrow on both ends, two arrows on both ends, or two arrows on only one end? This design makes absolutely no sense at all.



  • @dcardani said:

    Why are there 2 arrows on one end of the scroll bar, but only one arrow on the other end of the scroll bar? Shouldn't there either be only one arrow on both ends, two arrows on both ends, or two arrows on only one end? This design makes absolutely no sense at all.
    It's a mix of Windows' style and some other style (Motif?) where both buttons are just on the bottom and there isn't a top scrollbar button.



  • @dcardani said:

    Why are there 2 arrows on one end of the scroll bar, but only one arrow on the other end of the scroll bar? Shouldn't there either be only one arrow on both ends, two arrows on both ends, or two arrows on only one end? This design makes absolutely no sense at all.
     

    I was thinking the same but since the screenshot is labeled KDE and I don't know enough about KDE to comment, I let it lie.



  • I don't know much about KDE either, but I think the second left-facing button has actually a different purpose. Don't ask me what it is, though :)

    Anyway, as for a screenshot of Eclipse without a broken UI designer plugin open, without lunatic color settings and with an underlying window manager not from the last milennium, see here:

    Please pay special attention to the absolutely awesome "persistant tooltips" which not only show you inline documentation and parse errors but also give you (surprisingly helpful) options for fixes.

     

    So awesome...



  • @dhromed said:

    @bstorer said:

    comics that don't suck, like Axe Cop
     

    Axe Cop is the bomdiggy.

     

    Among other bomdiggy things are:

    - goats (.com)

    I would quote more webcomix, but those are pussy things that I also enjoy much, and not feasible for posting on this testosterone-infused board.

    That's entirely normal for an embedded 8-bit theater with no filing system.... 



  • @dcardani said:

    Why are there 2 arrows on one end of the scroll bar, but only one arrow on the other end of the scroll bar? Shouldn't there either be only one arrow on both ends, two arrows on both ends, or two arrows on only one end? This design makes absolutely no sense at all.
     

    Actually, it makes some sense. Having the two buttons for up and down together means by far less mouse movement when you alternately use them (like: scrolling a few lines down, then some lines up, again a few lines down etc.)



  • @DaveK said:

    8-bit theater
     

    This comic does absolutely nothing for me.



  • Dueling Analogs

    I might start re-reading Dueling Analogs and Ctrl+Alt+Del again. Any suggestions?





  • @Zecc said:

    I might start re-reading Dueling Analogs and Ctrl+Alt+Del again. Any suggestions?
    Uhh, don't?



  • @ammoQ said:

    Actually, it makes some sense. Having the two buttons for up and down together means by far less mouse movement when you alternately use them (like: scrolling a few lines down, then some lines up, again a few lines down etc.)
     

    Yah, it made sense back when Apple did it in freakin' 1997. (Sorry, sometimes my Mac douche personality rises up beyond my control...)

    It's sure as snot not a new idea. Although, I do wish Windows had it.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I do wish Windows had it.
     

    Whu? Who clicks those arrows?

    We invented scrollwheels for the express purpose of not having to deal with the annoying interaction paradigm of scrollbars*. Scrollbars suck. Stop using scrollbars.

    I dream of a bright future in which scrollbars are entirely replaced with a transparent position indicator, almost but not quite entirely like the one on the iPhone. Also one where all mousewheels function properly, for there appears to be considerable variety there, as outlined in a different thread.

     

    *) barring the rare application with stupid wheel response, such as VSS, which scrolls a single item/line per wheel-thunk (!!!), forcing me to tediously drag the scrollbar because we got lots of project folders. The diff window, to drag us back to 1990, has a non-scaling scrollbar of the tiny square persuasion. To the people who create this and those in charge who let it slide: I thinkyou should be run over. By a quintessential American truck.



  • @dhromed said:

    @DaveK said:

    8-bit theater
     

    This comic does absolutely nothing for me.

    Not enough dicks?



  • @dhromed said:

    Whu? Who clicks those arrows?

    We invented scrollwheels for the express purpose of not having to deal with the annoying interaction paradigm of scrollbars*. Scrollbars suck. Stop using scrollbars.

    Absolutely.  I use keyboard navigation more than a scroll wheel, but I never use the fucking scrollbars.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Yah, it made sense back when Apple did it in freakin' 1997.

     

     I don't recall seeing two scroll buttons on one side of a scrollbar and one on the other in Mac OS 8.

     

    You couldn't possibly be talking about spin buttons, since those were done WAY before 1997.

    It's sure as snot not a new idea.

    The reason so many of these "old ideas" are being reiterated is probably because they work. At least, that's the ideal answer. Really it's because they seemed like a good idea at the time. Not everybody is interested in re-learning an entirely new set of skills to use a GUI just because Steve Jobs pulled a new idiom out of his ass; some people, like myself, like to wait for somebody else to make it, so that it isn't covered in crap.



  • @ammoQ said:

    @dcardani said:

    Why are there 2 arrows on one end of the scroll bar, but only one arrow on the other end of the scroll bar? Shouldn't there either be only one arrow on both ends, two arrows on both ends, or two arrows on only one end? This design makes absolutely no sense at all.
     

    Actually, it makes some sense. Having the two buttons for up and down together means by far less mouse movement when you alternately use them (like: scrolling a few lines down, then some lines up, again a few lines down etc.)

    Sorry, my question wasn't "why are there 2 together?" I use that feature on my computer. My question was, "Why are there 2 together on one side, but only one on the other side?" I've seen designs where there are 2 arrows on only one side, 2 arrows on both sides, or one arrow on both sides, but I've never seen a situation where there were 2 arrows on one side, and only one arrow on the other side. The only legitimate reason I can think of for that is if you're scrolled all the way to one side and it takes away one of the arrows because you can't scroll in that direction anymore. But if that were the case, you'd think it would take the arrow away from both sides of the scrollbar. And it shouldn't take it away from either. At best, it should just disable it. But really, it shouldn't do that either because the thumb already shows you that you can't scroll any further. At this point in the history of computers, it's just so far outside the norm of what users are used to, that whatever it's doing is just too confusing to be useful.

    I do like the idea of scrollbars either going away or becoming more iPhone-like (but not identical to the iPhone). I like having the indicator always visible, but maybe transparent. For long documents, grabbing the thumb and scrolling is a lot faster than using the wheel, so I don't want to see them go away completely.



  • @BC_Programmer said:

    I don't recall seeing two scroll buttons on one side of a scrollbar and one on the other in Mac OS 8.
     

    See this page: http://www.macoptions.com/os85/appearcp.html

    Scroll down to "Smart Scrolling".

    You didn't see it because it's off by default, not because it didn't exist. (That's from 8.5. I'm not 100% sure it was in 8.)

    @BC_Programmer said:

    The reason so many of these "old ideas" are being reiterated is probably because they work.

    Yeah, mouse scrollwheel aside, that made scrollbars a lot more convienent for me, even if you only manually click on the arrows once a week at least that one time a week is more pleasant.

    @BC_Programmer said:

    Not everybody is interested in re-learning an entirely new set of skills to use a GUI just because Steve Jobs pulled a new idiom out of his ass; some people, like myself, like to wait for somebody else to make it, so that it isn't covered in crap.

    Apple made more usable UIs when Steve Jobs wasn't in charge. Since Steve Jobs came back, they've basically thrown all their UI innovations/research in the toilet and flushed.

    One of the many reasons I switched to Vista when it came out-- Microsoft might have a worse UI, but at least they're working to improve it! Every OS X version gets worse than the last, and all of them are worse than OS 9. (Another reason I switched is that Apple became even more hostile towards backwards-compatibility. They were always pretty hostile, but the Classic -> OS X switch was insane.)



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @dhromed said:

    @DaveK said:

    8-bit theater
     

    This comic does absolutely nothing for me.

    Not enough dicks?

    dhromed's first law of comics: never enough dicks


  • @dhromed said:

    We invented scrollwheels for the express purpose of not having to deal with the annoying interaction paradigm of scrollbars*. Scrollbars suck. Stop using scrollbars.

    Scrollbars work great if you have a touch-sensitive screen rather than a mouse as the input device.



  • @bstorer said:

    dhromed's first law of comics: never enough dicks

    I will never hear the end of this!

    You're all such dicks.

     

    But that's why I'm here, obiovusly.



  • @DaveK said:

    Scrollbars work great if you have a touch-sensitive screen rather than a mouse as the input device.
     

    Except that it's superseded by fullscreen dragging as well. The iPhone did get a lot right.



  • @bstorer said:

     Don't get me wrong, I actually like Netbeans, especially for JRuby.  [b]But I always feel like one of the buttons should inform me that the cow says "moo." [/b]

     

    No, no.  You're thinking of TOAD!

     

    (For the non-TOAD users, also known as the "privilidged", it literally ribbits while loading.  I'm not making that up.)


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