Year: 2002

Asa pleasantly surprised me by pointing out the following:

mpt omits something that has to be one of the most important usability flaws in IE, that the main browser scrollbar has a fat border to the right of it forcing the user to actually look where he puts his mouse pointer rather than just tossing it against the edge of the screen and knowing you’ve hit your target.

Since I rarely use Mozilla or IE maximized, I wouldn’t have noticed this. Mozilla happily eliminates the typical window border and takes advantage of Fitts’s Law. In brief testing, it seems almost every Windows application suffers from the border on the edge of the screen. Oddly, Lotus Notes was one of the few that also got this right. With the inconsistencies between Windows apps, I’m not surprised that mpt missed this one. I agree that it is a major flaw in IE.

<rant mode="pet peeve">Speaking of Fitts’s Law, it’d be nice if Back were returned to the image context menu of Mozilla. The context menu is by far the fastest way to go back and I’d say used far more than scrolling. This is especially annoying when you have images blocked or a large image with transparent edges that takes up most of the page.</rant>

Matthew Thomas is “In search of the perfectly designed browser” and gives a brief recounting of browser history up to now. After describing progress in browser UI over the years, Matthew responds to claims that he wants Mozilla to be just like Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE):

I’m not ashamed to say that Mozilla should look more like MSIE, because it would be pretty hard not to…. If Mozilla looked just like MSIE, however, it would be much less usable than it could be. For the record, here’s my rough list of the top ten usability problems in Internet Explorer.

Matthew then lists a number of places where Mozilla UI can and should be better than MSIE–places where MSIE has usability problems. In most of his examples, Mozilla already has better functionality than MSIE. It isn’t always usable, though. Let’s say you know Mozilla supports popup ad blocking. Many users won’t look for anything in advanced preferences and even fewer would think that this is script related and find the unrequested windows item. Don’t try searching for popup in the help. It won’t get you any closer.

Asa and Blake have gotten stuck on number 6 of his rough list: “It’s extremely difficult to uninstall. More strategy tax.” Certainly uninstall isn’t something you do while using an application, but it is definitely a part of a good product. (An uninstaller was a requirement for Windows product certification starting with Windows 95. This is yet another place that Microsoft exempts itself from following the rules they place on their competitors.) A product should demonstrate that the user is respected from start to finish. Although you hope that your product is never uninstalled, it is rude to try to make it difficult or impossible to remove. Microsoft wagers that most users of its products won’t get so annoyed that they’ll go elsewhere. Mozilla (and its derivatives) still needs to gain users. When Mozilla gets plug-in install right, then maybe it will be time to worry about uninstall.

As asked for in bug 72374, bookmarklets (javascript bookmarks) should have a different icon than normal bookmarks. I figured out a way to hack the userChrome.css to do just that. See my comments in the bug. This rocks!

Asa posted:

Bug reports are wanted. But only if the bug is specific to Phoenix. If it’s a core Mozilla bug that happens to affect Phoenix (like a layout or toolkit bug) then it probably belongs in the appropriate Mozilla component.

He also pointed to the Phoenix Project Page. The readme/FAQ seems to contradict Asa’s comments, so you might take everything with a grain of salt.

Asa announced that Phoenix nightly builds are available, so naturally I went and snagged one. Way back in May I had tested a build of Mozilla/Browser, the predecessor to Phoenix. Other than customizable toolbars and the ability to run it at the same time as Mozilla, I didn’t notice much progress. (Yes, I know the developers have had other things to do in the meantime.) The prefs dialog is much cleaner than in Mozilla; it doesn’t have the messy tree control and only has five panels. Menus are trimmed down and are virtually identical to the Mozilla/Browser build I looked at.

I’d hoped that Phoenix was going to be a browser that focused on users. Perhaps it will be. Based on the differences between it and the earlier Mozilla/Browser, I’m concerned that it’s going the wrong direction. The more usable separate address and navigation bars are joined again. Distinctive icons have been replaced with the round ones from the Orbit theme, which have fewer visual differences. Not only has the throbber been eliminated (not a bad idea by itself and you can add it back by customizing the toolbar), but all page loading progress indicators are gone. The search, history, and bookmarks sidebars are missing as well.

So that’s where it is now. Since nightly builds just started, I plan to wait and watch. (As I understand it, that’s about all we can do now… Last I heard the developers didn’t want feedback or patches, although there are a number of bugs for phoenix in bugzilla.) I’m looking forward to watching this develop. I’d love if some the improvements were applied to the mozilla trunk.

This sounds like a great April Fools day joke created by people making fun of SOAP: IBM and USA Technologies announced Friday that they will Web-enable 9,000 washing machines and dryers at U.S. colleges and universities. Called e-Suds, the systems will allow students to check for machine availability on a web site. They can pay by swiping an id or credit card or calling on a cell phone. Students can choose to have the machine add soap and fabric softener. When their wash is done, they can be notified by e-mail. Laundromat owners can also use the web interface to monitor machine status, check water temperature and fiters, and watch usage patterns. Cashless vending should also help reduce the $500 million annual losses attributed to vandalism.

A Reuters story about the machines says “A company that owns laundry machines in colleges in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Kentucky will install the machines during the autumn term.” I wonder if Asbury will be getting them.

Hixie provided a link to an archive of Blake’s mysterious deleted post that I mentioned earlier. Blake also admits the post made a brief appearance on his site. It makes some fun reading, so here it is:

Oh, what a lovely day. Netscape 7 came out and incompetence is flying everywhere. There are lots of thoughts floating around in my tiny head, and I can’t compile them into a coherent blog. So here goes…

* On the one hand, there has long been a push by various Netscape engineers to turn on popup blocking. As you can guess from Netscape 7, this was a lost battle. “But reviewers will ding us on it when they see it in Mozilla,” they said. “But it will generate negative publicity.” Well, it it did. But let’s forego an extended “told ya so” for now in the interest of moving on.

* On the other hand, c|net is a joke. First of all, Netscape 7 is hardly competing with Mozilla; it’s competing with IE. In light of this, it’s absolutely ridiculous to list “No popup blocking” as a “con” unless they did the same for IE. They didn’t.

* It’s abundantly clear that c|net does not use the product. This became evident when Netscape 6 came out and they gave it a 7, then lowered it to a 4. They reaffirmed it this year with such gems as “We still miss the Netscape 4.x feature that let you right-click any GIF and save it as your Windows wallpaper.” Netscape 7 has Set As Wallpaper functionality. It’s sickening that these people are paid to influence consumer decisions in the tech industry, and they don’t actually use the products.

* This problem is not limited to c|net, it plagues most computer magazines. In pcworld’s quasi-review, for example, they note that “The Download Manager controls and interface are revamped for easier use,” but Netscape 6.x didn’t even have a download manager. All these publications just skim our marketing documents and write broad summaries of a product. It’s disgusting.

* c|net has some sort of vendetta against Netscape. This is not a “wah, they were mean” claim, it’s obvious. They’ve republished the same story three different times, worded differently and with different headlines; as already noted, they never truly use the product; their review is titled “Don’t Switch Browsers,” which presumes use of IE, and then ensures under that that “Most users choose IE.” (Choose. ahem); and they continue to compare Netscape to Mozilla, but have never bothered with IE-Mozilla comparisons.

* The “new” netscape.com is the “old” netscape.com and this took…how long? For a new bar at the top? When I visit in 4.x, there is no roadblock telling users to download 7.0. The extent of the promotion is a tiny “Download Netscape 7.0” link in the bottom left and — the ultimate insult — a popup ad.

* Even if Netscape 7 debuted to mixed reviews, I’d hardly be able to take much pride in it. How do you get worked up over a product when you sped it up by 50% overnight (Phoenix; Minotaur) and added 3 killer features in a week (bookmarks quicksearch; history quicksearch; toolbar customization).

* I wish Netscape would get serious about producing a killer product and assign the tiny team making Phoenix to make a killer successor to Netscape 7. I’d think the terrible 7.0 press, combined with current internal ongoings, would push them to do this. And I wish it would get out of the mentality that the only way to monetize a browser is to stick advertisements everywhere, instead of clever integration (see MSN, Windows XP).

Now I have to go home and hear my friends and family talk about how the press said Netscape 7 sucks. And I have to explain that we got rid of popup blocking because our one site, out of however many billions of websites are out there, has a popup. What fun.

posted by Blake R at 4:25 PM on Aug 29, 2002

It looks like my recollection of the post was only semi-accurate. The real thing is more interesting. I got the gist that he had quickly made large improvements in the browser, but was a bit wrong about the specifics. I also didn’t catch the part about the Phoenix team. Does this mean they are officially supported? I thought this was a free time only kind of project. This gives me some hope that an internal comparison may push management to want the better browser.

In a Douglas Adams-like paradox, now that I’ve found Blake’s post again, Tony Davis’s rant has been removed.

It’s okay “Mr. Basil”, I know that Basil isn’t your last name.

After weeks of work cleaning, building, painting, and moving, we held our first vespers service tonight in the new space for our church. Although we barely had the icons up in the santuary and many still need to be hung in the nave, praying there was beautiful. “Now as we come to the setting sun and behold the evening lights, we praise God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!” Vespers was timed perfectly: as we prayed, the sunset transformed the interior of the church in a wash of changing colors, a deep orange and then crimson. It feels so appropriate and good to be starting out in this wonderfully almost four-times larger space at the beginning of a new ecclesiastical year. As our new metropolitan, his beatitude, Herman, reminds us, the church year is about the mystery of our redemption. With every year, we learn a little better what it means to repent and be saved. Praise God for his goodness to us over this past year.

O designer and creator of all that is, in your power you arranged the seasons and the times. So now, bless this year we begin through your goodness, give all your people lasting peace, and by prayers of the Theotokos, save us.

Enthroned on high, O Christ, our God, you are the designer and creator of all things, whether visible or hidden from our sight, of day and night, of the seasons and the times. Bless this year we now begin, and preserve your people from all evil, O most merciful Lord.

– Troparion and Kondakion for the New Year by New Skete Monastery

Tony Davis complains (with much profanity) that All Mozilla does is steal Netscape’s thunder. Well, yeah. Read eWeek recently?

Tony says:

I am sick and tired of Mozilla…. Yes, Netscape makes bad decisions regarding problems that should be obvious, but their motivation is in the right place; to make money to pay for engineers…. Netscape engineers are paid to do things that no one else would do (if they weren’t paid for it). Period. Engineers who checkin patches composed of hundreds of files with thousands of lines of code. No kid working after school in his basement is going to do that…. Oh, and the majority of code contributed to Mozilla.org comes from Mozilla engineers PAID for by Netscape.

All Mozilla does is steal Netscape’s thunder. They release a product that is in reality Netscape 7.0…. If Mozilla.org had never released a browser with pop-up blocking in it (no matter how cool that is, and no matter that it doesn’t work correctly – it breaks Netscape Radio and several other features) no one would be using that same feature to slam Netscape.

But Mozilla’s not Netscape, right? Let’s be frank: Netscape 7 is getting slammed because it deserves it. Instead of focusing on the customer, Netscape 7 annoys the customer. I don’t want a dozen AOL advertisements sprinkled around my system. Adding them will not improve your chances of gaining my business. I do want popup ad blocking. The differences between Mozilla and Netscape are few. Mozilla, however, doesn’t annoy me (other than the UI problems that it shares with Netscape 7), and is ahead of Netscape in features I want (popup ad blocking, incremental find, chatzilla, javascript debugger). Mozilla just shames Netscape 7 by pointing out that it didn’t have to be frustrating.

The motivation for Netscape 7 seems to be desperation. Blake pointed out good ways to make money from the browser. Hint: they benefit the user in convenience not annoyance.