[TextMate] Preferences window (was ProFont)

[Ryan Platte]

Hi Sune,

On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 18:09:30 +0200, Sune Foldager <cryo at diku.dk> wrote:
> On 7/10-2004, at 17:56, Ryan Platte wrote:
> > I'm discouraged by this thread, I hope TextMate won't be another
> > product whose developers think they know better than Apple's UI team
> > AND negatively-surprised users.
> 
> Yes well... read these quotes from Allan, earlier in this thread:

I apologize; I leaned too heavily on Gmail's threading, which put
Allan's comments in another "conversation", since the subject line
changed. I should have caught up before posting.

But it does bother me when developers respond to user comments &
criticism in an opposing way, rather than facilitating a valuable
discussion that can improve and/or focus the product. If somebody's so
passionate about a product as to write about it, they may be annoying,
but they represent a potential fan base, and at least free market
research, both of which are like gold if the goal is widespread
adoption.

> A preference should be a setting that the user changes infrequently. If
> a user might change the attributes of a feature many times in a work
> session, avoid using preferences to set those attributes.

As has been discussed, several of the menu items are "personal
preference" choices rather than "temporary setting" choices, hence do
have a place in a Preferences window.

> Maybe YOU people should start comming up with some argumentative quotes
> and references from the AHIG :-).

Touche.

I'll work from:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/AppleSWDesign/UsingTechnologies/chapter_7_section_6.html

My comments are prefaced with dashes.

"Preference settings are user-defined parameters that your software
remembers from session to session. Preferences can be a way for your
application to offer choices to users about how the application runs.
Preferences often affect the behavior of the application or the
default appearance of content created with the application.

"To reduce the complexity of your application, be picky about which
features should have preferences and which should not. The key is to
implement preferences only for those features that your users are
likely to find useful. In other words, avoid implementing all the
preferences you can think of. Instead, focus your preferences on the
features users might really want to modify."

-- I read the above paragraphs to mean that prefs are expected to be
the main mechanism for persistent changes. This isn't explicit, but
since the Preferences item is a standard element of Aqua, I hope
you'll allow that it's reasonable to understand this as an explanation
of which things should go there. Note that up to this point the
discussion of what to include in the prefs is what complexity to
expose to the user, not where to put complexity.

"A preference should be a setting that the user changes infrequently.
If a user might change the attributes of a feature many times in a
work session, avoid using preferences to set those attributes.
Instead, give the user modeless access to the controls for modifying
that feature. For example, you might implement the feature using a
menu item or a control in a palette or window."

-- And (according to my reading and understanding) here's the
criterion for whether something should be a pref vs. attribute
modified through another UI element: how often does it change? To me,
the distinction is clear, if poorly elucidated: prefs are persistent;
state changes through other UI elements are temporary.

> > Now adapt it to suit your target
> > audience (all of whom are Mac users, by the by) without ruining it for
> > yourselves...
> 
> Believe it or not, a _lot_ of people like the preferences the way they
> are now.. I don't think you speak for the entire target audience, while
> I do acknowledge that several people on this list have complained about
> the lack of a prefs window.

Of course there are those who like the current design -- after all,
the developers chose to do it a way they liked. My mention that all
are Mac users was intended to point to the fact that no-one would be
surprised at a Preferences window, while many will be surprised and
confused on various occasions at its absence.

> > What problem does this deviance from user expectations
> > solve?
> 
> Deviance from _some_ users expectations. What it solves or rather why
> it has been chosen is explained elsewhere, in Allans earlier post etc.

OK, deviance from Aqua. And no, I don't think there's been an
explanation of what problem it solves, although I've certainly been
wrong before, in fact, just a few minutes ago, I recall.   ;-)   Why
it was chosen, I understand. I'm asking a different question.

-- 
Ryan Platte