The DreamLand Express - Charles Oppermann's Software Blog - All Comments

re: Copy message box text to the clipboard

Tim — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:12:37 GMT

Thanks, that's really useful!

re: Create New Folder in Explorer – why not easier?

mark — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:16:53 GMT

could someone shake a MS programmer until his brains fall out onto the floor please. In other words why NOT make the button for us?

re: Windows Media Player not adding albums to media library

Waldemar — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 23:15:14 GMT

Well it looks like y'all got it so I'm in !

and let Y'all know later

re: Balloon Timeout and Notification Duration

ChuckOp — Mon, 23 May 2011 20:51:58 GMT

FYI, after doing some additional reading on Mac OS X, they used to have balloon help, but took it out. It's simply not available anymore.

Contrast that with Microsoft's approach, which often keeps outdated technologies around for legacy purposes. The Briefcase and QuickView technologies come to mind.

re: Balloon Timeout and Notification Duration

ChuckOp — Mon, 23 May 2011 20:47:50 GMT

>>XP powered the user, Vista took it away, with no good reason

Let's make sure we're talking about the same things here. For balloon notifications, XP allowed applications to specify a timeout. XP imposed a minimum of 10 seconds and a maximum of 30 seconds. I believe the default if not specified is 10 seconds.

As for the reason why Windows Vista "took it away", I gave you a good reason - to help users who needed ALL notifications to last longer. That's a very good reason.

> A single checkbox too much?

You advocated allowing each notification to be customizable with regard to duration. That customization has to live somewhere either in the application or the operating system

> If Vista did everything correctly, why did it fail?

I never implied that Vista did everything correctly. However, it was a big step forward for accessibility for people with disabilities due to the growing recogition of the need for system-wide constructs that allow users the ability to inform the OS and appilcations of their desires.

> I hate it when Windows fails and my customers ask for Mac versions of our products

That sounds like a larger issue than just balloon notifications - which by the way Mac OS X has no concept of. Each application has to code their own status messages and there is no way for a user to inform Mac OS X that they need things to not timeout quickly

re: Balloon Timeout and Notification Duration

Burak KALAYCI — Mon, 23 May 2011 18:59:57 GMT

> most users don't have a need to customize the notification duration per application.

There are users, clueless, exposed to hostile Internet environment. There are users in a controlled environment, who run only a few custom applications. And the applications are run by users, as an extension of themselves where the application is the user.

I wouldn't consider an application assigning different timeout values to each of its messages too complex.

XP powered the user, Vista took it away, with no good reason. (I would say the reason could be trying to be a 'nanny OS' if this was done deliberately..)

Vista could have switched to this new behavior, but left the option to go back to the powerful XP state via a single checkbox. But Vista being Vista, this didn't happen :(

> The UI support to make each notification message customizable

A single checkbox too much? How many people are not calling Vista bloated right now because of this missing checkbox, I wonder...

If Vista did everything correctly, why did it fail? And remember even pirates complained that they made a loss with their Vista sales...

Sorry if my tone is a bit harsh, I've invested too much into Windows and I hate it when Windows fails and my customers ask for Mac versions of our products which we don't have...

re: Mailbag – Flash Player Install and Windows Games – Reversi and Minesweeper

ChuckOp — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:50:01 GMT

Sure, in theory the look and feel of Reversi can be updated. It was for Windows XP, but I believe that the Windows XP version did not use the original Reversi game engine.

Having played Reversi for over 20 years now, I can tell you that the original game engine was quite basic.

re: Balloon Timeout and Notification Duration

ChuckOp — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:47:57 GMT

@Burak: The reason Windows doesn't support per-application settings for message duration is simple; it's too complex and has dubious benefit.

After all, most users don't have a need to customize the notification duration per application.

But if there was such a feature, there would have to be end-user UI to manage it. Just look as the existing "Notification Area Icons" control panel, which lists all the recent icons. In my list, there are icons for applications that I haven't used in quite awhile. Now imagine there was a similar list for all the different notifications - it could be hundreds of entries. I know of one security product that has dozens of different notifications.

The UI support to make each notification message customizable just isn't worth it to support the small set of users who'd want it. In my opinion.

Regarding allowing finer grain control. The API that sets the time out accepts milliseconds, so feel free to write an utility that gives the resolution you desire.

The designers of the Ease of Access control panel decided that it better to offer a smaller set of values that cover the majority of values.

re: Mailbag – Flash Player Install and Windows Games – Reversi and Minesweeper

Reversi fan — Sat, 21 May 2011 15:21:43 GMT

So can the look of Reversi be modernized and the engine kept the same?

re: Balloon Timeout and Notification Duration

Burak KALAYCI — Sat, 21 May 2011 10:29:18 GMT

> The reason for ignoring the application-supplied timeout is so that users can gain more control over their working environment.

So, what about users who want to give the control to the application they run? (Which are the tools actually powering the user).

I mean, what stopped Vista guys having a checkbox that said 'Let the applications decide for each message' (even if they would choose not having it checked by default - which would be the right thing to do IMO).

> The default value is 5 seconds, and can be set to 7, 15, 30, 60, and 300 seconds

More power to the user, especially those who want to set it to 8 seconds, or 20, or 45...

You may defend the Vista way, but not having an XP compatible option, IMO, is not defensible...