[Nobody]

My biggest complaint about the GUI right now is the idiosyncracy that you have to go up to the top left hand corner of the screen (not the window you are working in) to access any window's menus. This to me is a total waste of time. Like Windows, each window in OS X should have it's own set of menus so you aren't having to travel all the way across the screen simply to access a command that doesn't have a keyboard shortcut.
Next complaint would be the idiosyncrasy of OS X to only allow you to drag a window smaller or larger from one handle which is located at the bottom right corner of the window. In Windows, you can resize the windows by placing your mouse pointer along any edge of the window.
Next complaint is the mouse pointer. If you were to drag a selection box on an empty desktop, leaving your mouse button down, take a look at where the corner of the box that is touching your mouse pointer is located. It's not right at the topmost point of the mouse. It's like 7 or so pixels in (depends on what resolution you are using)! Time and time again I have gone to drag a highlighted object in a program or even on the OS X desktop, but since I did not place my mouse pointer so that the object was 7 pixels in on the mouse pointer, the object becomes deselected and I have to try to re-select and try again.
Now take a look at a Windows selection. When you drag a selection box over the desktop, where is the corner of the box closest to the pointer? It is right at the very tip of the mouse pointer where it should be. Ensuring no accidental misplacement -- just an accurate selection every time when you need to make accurate selections.
If there were some GUI enhancements out there that took care of these problems, I might want to give OS X another chance. But judging from Apples traditional nature, I don't think it is going to address these issues.
Even the Commmodore Amiga didn't have these idiosyncrasies, before MS Windows was born.

[griffman]

DejaMenu
As for the selection thing, I'm personally quite happy that it does not work like Windows -- I'm forever missing objects when I try to drag in Windows, and that doesn't happen in OS X. I'm not sure why; perhaps I'm just used to OS 9/X over Windows, but I find the Mac solution to be much easier to use.
-rob.

[jmincey]

Some of these points are covered in this thread so you might be interested in checking it out. The points you touch on begin (in the thread I reference above) with my second post.

[DMurray431]

Sounds like Atomic_Fusion in a Microsoft employee, with a bad memory of how "windows" came about. As I recall "Windows" was a complete "rip-off" of of the MacIntosh GUI, some time after Apple brought it about. "Windows" was a program inside MSDOS to guide you thru the giberish of DOS commands. Apple did borrow the "mouse" from Xerox (who thought it was a toy), but the rest was all Apple. When Microsoft brought out "Windows" Apple useres had been using the concept for years (without the vulnerability of their (windows) viruses. The latest delay in the release of the latest version of "Windows", perhaps they are waiting for the latest version of the Mac OS to borrow more ideas. (Apparently Apples "Widgets" will become "gadgets" in the new windows.......who knows what else they will "borrow". Apple has always been a "hardware" company.......writeing their own OS to go with their computers. Apple has been inovative, and Microsoft............. It was Microsoft that didn't think that the internet was going to amout to anything (a passing fancy).......and they (Bill) didn't think the ipod would last (or sustain itself). Apple's problem is comperable to the Sony Betamax and VHS tape systems. Beta was always the better system, but Sony would not license the technology.......VHS was licensed to everyone. Beta is still with the commercial systems and still the best system, but all but gone for mass consumption. Apple continues to make the best of Hardware and Software for those of us who want "the best"

[jmincey]

"Apple did borrow the 'mouse' from Xerox (who thought it was a toy), but the rest was all Apple."
That's not really true. Apple's Mac development team -- including the late Jef Raskin -- did much more for the GUI than many computer historians give them credit, but you are erring on the other extreme and failing to acknowledge (or recognize) the pioneering contribution of Xerox PARC.
If you are interested, read about the Star Computer which predates the Macintosh.
Also, the GUI enhancements sought by the original author of this thread derive more from X-Windows developed at MIT (than from Microsoft Windows).

[Typhoon14]

There are a number of advantages to the OS X menu system. Menus of inactive applications take up no screen real estate, for one. My biggest issue with the Windows menu system, however, is that the menus are not of a consistent size if you have a small application window, the menus will not fit and tend to either create a second row (very annoying) or add an arrow that must be clicked to access the out-of-bounds menus in contextual form. The OS X dedicated menubar allows the same menu options to appear, regardless of the size of the application window. It even allows menus for applications that have no currently open Windows. It can be very handy to close the last window in an application without quitting the entire programme.

[schokid02]

Quote:

---

Apple did borrow the "mouse" from Xerox (who thought it was a toy), but the rest was all Apple

---

Apple 'borrowed' far more than the idea of the mouse; Apple ripped the entire idea of a GUI from Xerox, who already had a rudimentary system in place. When Xerox finally decided to let Jobs (and a small team) come in a view their computer, the Apple guys reportedly went nuts with excitement over discovering GUI. Apple gets credit for bringing GUIs to the mainstream and making the best (IMO) GUI with OS X, but in the end they still ripped the idea from Xerox. Something like that happening nowadays and Xerox would be getting some mighty high royalty payments.

[mdawson]

Actually, if I recall correctly, much of Apples new UI was already completed by the time Jobs & Co. visited Xerox. So what they got out of the Xerox visit was akin to additional ideas. Secondly, I remember a PBS special that was on about 10 or so years ago about the development and history of personal computers and one of the PARC people interviewed clearly stated that anything Apple got out of their visit to PARC was freely given to them by Xerox. The former PARC employees complaint was that she went to her superiors before the (in)famous visit and told them that Steve Jobs would run with anything he saw, but the high ups blew her off.
The Xerox PARC facility had developed a number of great technologies that were implemented into their Alto system, but Xerox corporate was obviously content to sit on those successful projects. Even after the successful launch of the Mac, Xeroxs only foray into the PC market was the release of their IBM PC clones and not a system based on the Alto. Xerox did not so much as attempt to develop a GUI for the IBM PC platform.
The Apple/Xerox scenario is very different from the Apple/Microsoft scenario where genuine ripping off did occur. Apple, unlike Xerox, had every intention of making the products they had under development commercially availablefirst as the Lisa and later the more successful Macintoshand when Gates was brought on board to develop software for the new Apple he threw a hissy fit when he returned to Redmond and started development of Windows. The development of Windows also began Microsofts history of releasing crapware that would take years to mature into a half-respectable product.

Windows 1.0 was released in 1985, not as an operating system, which was still MS-DOS, but as an application suite. Windows was clearly a poor rip off of the Mac OS with a garish UI design. From day one Microsoft never understood things such as subtletynotice the garish use of color in Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0 that has remained up through Windows XP and is exasperated with the distracting use of transparency in Windows Vistahaving developed a UI that is always in your face. When I was in a job as a graphic designer for a university research library, I found Windows approach to UI design a hindrance to creativity and altered the color scheme and layout to be more Mac-like in order to minimize distraction.

Anyway, it took Microsoft seven years (Windows 3.1 in 1992) to get Windows to the point where anyone would take it seriously and a decade before Windows borrowed enough from the Mac OS that they could begin their global brainwash-fest that have most people now believing that Microsoft Windows is the OS that has the correct UI design and in some cases that Windows was the first GUI OS.

In the age of the command line interface, the fledgling Microsoft actually did produce some of the best software on the market. So much so that Apple built Applesoft BASIC off of the Microsoft engine and even Tandy used Microsoft as the developer of its Color BASIC and Extended Color BASIC system. Do recall that at this point the PC market was a myriad of competing products all running proprietary systems and that Microsoft was not behind most of them. Microsofts nerd farm was pretty good at churning out decent software in the age of the user-unfriendly computer, but their engineers lack the creative savvy to innovate in a world of designed for the masses as Windows UI design failings clearly indicate. In all fairness, many of Windows UI missteps were perhaps a means to avoid legal action from Apple and have since stuck.

[Nobody]

DMurray wrote: "Sounds like AtomicFusion i[s] a Microsoft employee, with a bad memory of how "windows" came about."

No, I am not a MS employee. I just want to get more work done, faster. I don't want to be bogged down by the restricitons of OS X's GUI. I actually resisted hopping on the Windows wagon until it was absolutely necessary. I had an Amiga computer, and stayed with it as long as I could before going with Windows. At that time I had used Macs a little but had no interest in owning one.
Now some of the links offerred in response to my original post have been the kind of "help" I was needing, and I appreciate everybody's help. See, when I am moving on my computer as fast as I can on a project, the GUI has got to be convenient for me, not traditional and "safe." Project repetitition over a period of time begins to expose problems with a GUI, and the OS X GUI doesn't cater to my needs because of the issues I pointed out.
When I'm in a CAD program with object snapping and I need to select an object amid several other objects, I need to see exactly where point of the pointer is so I can select and drag efficiently. Having the point of selection 7 pixels in on an arrow (OS X's pointer) doesn't help. I simply cannot afford to have to slow down so I can safely estimate that the pointer is exactly over the object I want to select, instead of right up to it at the pointer's point where I can see it. After hours of this kind of use, my production rate drops.
This isn't a joke. It's a genuine concern. Please don't adopt an attitude that nobody else in the world has geniune concerns simply because you don't fully understand them. The "Christ-like" thing to do is to "find out" more when somebody expresses a concern, rather than assuming he is part of a conspiracy theory against you.
If I had my wish, I'd still be using an Amiga that is up to date and fully supported in this dark and dreary world, and I would have never gotten involved with Windows. But bringing up the "A"-Word around here, seeing from another response to my original post, brings even more critics out of the woodwork.
Why can't people just be friends and appreciate the good that comes out of products that they don't own. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I've used Mac, Amiga, and Windows PCs and I liked Amiga's GUI the best. It's not fair to compare today's GUI to yesterday's GUIs though, so please don't flame me.
When you get right down to it, maybe Windows didn't rip off Mac. Maybe Windows ripped off Amiga! Afterall, Mac has always only had one mouse button. Amiga had two in 1984. Plus a color screen! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

[Nobody]

jmincey wrote: "Also, the GUI enhancements sought by the original author of this thread derive more from X-Windows developed at MIT (than from Microsoft Windows)."

Thanks for pointing that out! It's not about Windows vs OS X. It's about a GUI feature that I think can be better.

[cyberhazard]

I've had it with my Lambo's idiosyncrasies. My old chevy was better.
My biggest complaint is about the engine noise. At higher RPM it sounds way different than my old chevy.
My next complaint is the doors. Whats up with swing up and forward stuff. Everybody knows doors should swing out.
My next complaint is the shifter. 6 gears requires too much shifting and reverse is in the wrong place.
And for the life of me, I cant figure out how to turn on the windshield wipers or set the time on the radio.
Lamborghini really needs to address these issues. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[jmincey]

"...in the end they still ripped the idea from Xerox."
Apple licensed some ideas from Xerox. Not ripped. Licensed.

[schokid02]

Some places I've read 'licensed' while others have said 'borrowed,' which in context basically suggested ripping, but given that we're talking the early stages of consumer-PC development the idea of ripping is quite different than it is now.

[Nobody]

I understand that MS also licensed DOS for a hefty sum of $10,000 but many people feel that they ripped the guy the off. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
In both cases there is an element of "ripping" but in the business world isn't that normal? /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif