Browsers (Was: A very basic blog about D)

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2013 16:22:46 +0200
"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 16 July 2013 at 00:26:51 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > Vista doesn't have that horrible MS Dock taskbar
> 
> Worth noting you can turn that off: I have 7 on the laptop I'm on 
> now and after a few settings changes, it is very similar to 
> vista. To get a good taskbar you need to turn off the group 
> similar windows function (which I hated when it was introduced in 
> XP anyway).
>

Yea, I did actually manage to get my Win7 taskbar (and file explorer
and start menu) into a fairly XP state (and I do actually like being
able to manually rearrange the taskbar tasks now), but it took an
enormous amount of obscure, and often third-party, hacks.

> Your quick launch still keeps their place but that doesn't bug me 
> like I thought it would, it is actually kinda nice.
> 

Win7 doesn't even have quick launch unless you hack it back in. (Which
I've done of course.) But MS sure as hell doesn't make "No I don't want
your idiotic new UI ideas, just the kernel" easy.

> > window screenshots *every* freaking time your mouse goes near
> 
> Oh yeah, that is annoying. I hate hover things in general.

Me too. :/

> The 
> worst of them is on websites. My bank website used to have hover 
> menus right above the login thing...
> 
> So I go to the address bar and type in my bank dot com. Then i 
> move the mouse down toward the login form and click it.... but 
> oops, on the way down, I hovered over the stupid menu, so now by 
> click is redirecting me to some new site! AAAARGGGTHHHH!
> 

Yea. Makes no sense to me how *all* menu bars *everywhere* work on a
"click to open" concept, including the web browsers themselves, but
then the entire web decided "No, we have to make menu bars operate on
an incredibly inconvenient, distracting AND non-standard "hover" basis.

> God I hate hover crap.
> 

My sentiments exactly :)

> > I do actually like a lot of the ribbon stuff though. I don't 
> > see what the big problem is
> 
> It's different. I still haven't really figured out the new Paint 
> UI. I don't think it sucks, but it does take some getting used to.
> 

One useful tip to minimize clicking: You can switch between
tabs^H^H^H^Hribbons with the mouse's scroll wheel. The occasional extra
clicking to switch ribbons was probably the one thing I can understand
people not liking about the ribbons.

> 
> > Hmm, yea, that's not too bad, although I have found Linux FF 
> > tends to have a better default UI (that is, matches the system 
> > better) than Windows FF anyway.
> 
> Yes, I agree. And even there, I had to do an about:config thing 
> to kill the unified back/forward nonsense.
> 

THAT'S POSSIBLE?!? PLEASE TELL ME HOW!!! Or is the forward/back
dropdown list still unified? That's the part that really bugs me.

> > and so does the unified "stop/reload"
> 
> Oh yeah, that's annoying. But the keyboard is a bit better there, 
> f5+esc are easy to hit and more reliable anyway.
> 

Good tip, although my hand and mind are usually in mouse-mode when I'm
on the web.

I can understand the rationale for unified stop/reload: There's never a
time when *both* make sense to use. No point in reloading while loading
(gotta stop first), and makes so sense to stop when it's not loading.

But that reasoning falls apart the first time you reach for "stop" and
the damn thing changes to "reload" just before you click. I'll take
them separate, thank you.

> > Remember the old Sega GameGear's crappy LCD?
> 
> lol I actually liked it because it was backlit! Ate through 
> batteries like mad but it was usable in varied lighting 
> conditions.
> 

And it was color! (One of my all-time favorite commercials is the old
GameGear one where a kid is sitting outside playing a GameBoy, grabs a
big thick fallen tree branch, clonks himself over the head with it,
turns back to the game, and goes "Whoa! Color!") I had a GameGear. I
liked it. It was even blurrier than GameBoy though. And you're right
about the batteries. Shit, it went through them *six* at a time! I
usually just used the power cord though.

> > Screen size makes much more of a difference on PS3 than 
> > resolution. Probably at least 95% of PS3 games I've tried
> > include text that's so damn *small* that's it's barely
> > readable on even a 29" set
> 
> Yes, I can barely even read it on my friend's larger tv in the 
> call of duty game (especially when we play split screen, no point 
> even trying to read the score, 8, 3, and 11 all look the same to 
> me at those sizes)
> 

I never played CoD multiplayer. But I have to give them *huge* credit
for how (with the exception of multiplayer I guess, and maybe it's only
the Modern Warfare series) there is *no* tiny text at all, unlike most
PS3 games.

It always perplexes me how so many PS3 games will have a big 'ol box or
area for text, and then the text is so small that 90% of it is just
margins and padding.

> 
> > Really HD is only a moderate improvement if you compare
> > it to a *real* SD set instead of "SD on an HD set".
> 
> Aye. And even so, meh. I was called a troll a while ago because 
> somebody on youtube did a cgi remake of some Star Trek 2 scenes, 
> and I said my old VHS copy looked better.

lol!

Of course normally, calling a youtube commenter a troll is kind of
like calling a sasquatch "hairy". ;)

> But it did. The cgi artist did a fine job, sure, but the original 
> director and model makers did a *better* job and the VHS captured 
> it just fine. (One thing I think the cgi artist missed was the 
> deliberate angles and coloring choices the director made in the 
> original movie, to get across the contrast of hero and villain. 
> If you've seen the movie, you might remember what I mean - the 
> Enterprise was often shot with bluer light and taller angles (if 
> that's the right term), making it look more good and innocent, 
> whereas the Reliant had low angles and redder lights to look 
> menacing - a perfect fit for the scene. The cgi artist had 
> bazillion polygons but didn't capture the same atmosphere.
> 
> Then there were things that just looked silly, like cgi smoke. 
> Bah, the original effects were kinda cheesy too but I bought 
> them. Maybe thanks to the actors but still, my old tape looked 
> fine whatever the reason.)
> 

Yea, I'm actually not a fan of CG effects. *Sometimes* they work well
(There's a giant compressed-air canister that breaks loose in "Gone in
60 Seconds" that I *never* would have guessed was CG.) But usually, even
today, they lack the "realism" sense you get from more traditional
effects.

Some of my favorite visual effects are in Terry Gilliam's old
early-80's movie "Time Bandits". It not exactly the best movie I've
seen, but I love the visual effects. They have a certain "real, yet
otherworldly" quality that you just don't get from CG.

Actually, I'm not big on GC movies in general. I think cell-style just
looks a lot better. Something about the smoothness of the animation in
GC cartoons just doesn't look right (I've never figured out what
exactly it is about it), and really takes away from the experience.
(Although I am one of the few people who did like FF: Spirits
Within...go figure.)