Vista, the osx wanna be....? - Page 6

salival · #41 May 18th, 2007, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbloke

I agree that dragging a volume to the Trash to unmount it seems odd.

Yeah, that one is just like going to "Start" to shut down your computer

sal

contoursvt · #42 May 19th, 2007, 01:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salival

Yeah, that one is just like going to "Start" to shut down your computer

sal

Sorta

... but I always thought it meant the button was a starting point to stuff you want to do so if I want to start shutting down, I'll click on start and then see what tasks are there. Ok fine I'm making stuff up a bit now. LOL

ApeintheShell · #43 July 10th, 2007, 02:58 AM

Here is an explanation for the eject to trash debate:

"The Macintosh, from the Mac 128k up until the Quadra 605, included floppy drives that featured auto-inject and auto-eject. Auto-inject sucks the disk out of your hand into the drive if you push the disk in most of the way. Auto-eject ejects the disk from the drive when the user drags the disk icon to the trash in the Finder. IBM PC-compatibles, in contrast, have never offered either of these features, forcing users to push the disks all the way into the drive and press a button on the drive to manually eject the disk.
The origin of auto-eject can be attributed to Steve Jobs conception of the Macintosh as a "crankless Volkswagen" that runs "a system which is generally intuitive to users." In the Finder of the Macintosh operating system, the icon of a floppy disk appears when a disk is inserted. When the user is finished working with the disk, she drags the floppy icon to the trash, and the disk is ejected. Auto-eject completes the metaphor of the desktop, providing the user with a consistent experience.

In DOS on PC-compatible systems, inserting a floppy disk results in no immediate visual feedback. (Even in Windows 9x/NT, the floppy drive icon remains visible whether or not a disk is inserted.) The user must type the highly intuitive "cd A:" in order to even access the contents of the floppy disk. PC users often argue that the manual eject offers them the freedom to remove their disk whenever they please; however, this freedom can be quite dangerous when new users try to eject a floppy while it is being written to or read from. Auto-eject, therefore, is not only a means of consistency, but also of preventing potentially catastrophic user error".

source: http://home.socal.rr.com/fuweb/floppysite/eject.html

bbloke · #44 July 10th, 2007, 12:52 PM

Thanks, ApeintheShell. That was quite interesting to read.

**fryke** · #45 July 10th, 2007, 01:44 PM

Hm. Yes. But it kinda _still_ doesn't explain why ejecting a disk (even if automatically) would be represented by dragging it to a trashcan. To a user, this *obviously* looks like "deleting". I guess they just didn't find a metaphor for it that worked.

nixgeek · #46 July 10th, 2007, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fryke

Hm. Yes. But it kinda _still_ doesn't explain why ejecting a disk (even if automatically) would be represented by dragging it to a trashcan. To a user, this *obviously* looks like "deleting". I guess they just didn't find a metaphor for it that worked.

I always thought of it as trashing it from your "virtual" desktop since you didn't need it anymore, and that way the disk would remove itself from the computer and be put somewhere in the "real-world" desktop or anywhere else in the real world. That's how it made sense to me.

Mikuro · #47 July 10th, 2007, 02:07 PM

For a little more discussion, check out the bug hall of fame at asktog.com. It's #2.

**fryke** · #48 July 10th, 2007, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nixgeek

I always thought of it as trashing it from your "virtual" desktop since you didn't need it anymore, and that way the disk would remove itself from the computer and be put somewhere in the "real-world" desktop or anywhere else in the real world. That's how it made sense to me.

But that's clearly a "workaround" for a user interface bug. When you "open a folder", you "open a folder". When you "label a file" you "label a file". But when you put a disk to the trashcan...

It's also not only about explaining what the metaphor should mean. Think of it the other way 'round. You're in front of a Mac Plus the first time in your life. Inserting the disk: Easy. You put it in. The Mac even helps you by sucking it in the last inch. But now: How to eject it? I'm *QUITE* certain that a user who doesn't know about it wouldn't try to move it to the trash. Not with important files on it.