He said that Safari ignores most Windows conventions. That's bad.
I'm a Mac user and a huge fan of Apple's, but I completely agree that's bad.
One of the most frustrating things about using Firefox in OS X is that it looks and feels horribly wrong because it ignors most Mac conventions*.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I was prepared to call the article FUD before reading it... but then I noticed that it's Ars so I read it, and not only do the complaints seem valid, I don't even understand what Apple was thinking with some of the issues. For example, porting the OS X antialiasing over to Windows rather than using the native ClearType just seems weird (almost to the extent that I don't believe Ars Technica).
*
Yes, I know about Camino, but that doesn't diminish my point.
Not only that but *if* people actually deemed saying fuck during prime time to be a bad thing, those people can always just change the channel, or not buy the products advertised on those shows.
I know I'm just hacking on Carlin and a thousand other comedians and broadcasters here, but I have never understood the idea that saying certain words is intrinsically harmful.
Also, the rules, such as they are(were?), are ridiculous.
You can say crap or ass with impunity but shit is "an ess bomb" that you can (could?) get a big fine for.
You can't say fuck, but you can play a clip where there's an obvious implied fuck (so obvious that, my brain just fills in what should have been there most of the time and the bleep or gap only serves to bring attention to how stupid deleting the word was in the first place).
Somehow I was just picturing taking a few hours rebuilding world - which I haven't done in many years, but it left a very bad taste in my mouth (and - gratuitous Apple plug - that's one of the things I really don't miss since switching to OS X).
At the same time, this is a rather ingenious way of creating a virtual toll for roads. If the power gathered is then invested into a public transport system, then you'll end up having drivers subsidise public transport.
That's a great point I never would have thought of.
The fuel savings with public transport may well offset the extra fuel burnt through the turbine induced drag.
I'd be shocked if the energy extracted from burning extra fuel in cars on a freeway would come close to what you'd get by burning the same fuel in a properly designed power plant (and I'm quite confident that the emissions would be worse).
Without a doubt, the turbines will interfere with laminar flow, increase turbulence, and increase drag.
I have no idea if the increase in drag will dominate over the increase in efficiency by reclaiming lost energy, but it's definitely something that should be studied before implementing this kind of system on a large scale.
Ah - I see what you're saying (pretty dense of me, but I was thinking of computer displays).
You definitely have a point that plasmas were first to market for large screens.
I *think* that in the case of big flat panels, there was a confounding variable - research targeted at smaller LCD panels for computer displays. All the advancements from notebook and desktop computer displays got scaled up and transferred into LCD TVs and gave them a significant advantage. Without that, I think it would actually still be a toss-up (as technologies, LCD and plasma displays both have roughly equally balanced advantages and drawbacks).
To be fair, that is getting to be a bit of a stretch.
BTW - had to look up 'grist' (though what I got from context was about right). Anyway, thanks for expanding my vocabulary - always appreciate it:-)
Counterexample: LCD flat panels are overtaking Plasma on almost every performance criterion.
Actually - that is exactly what I was saying.
LCDs are not necessarily the best technology for color flat panel displays, but they have been refined so much, they can out-compete 'better' technologies.
I was actually thinking more about OLEDs than plasma, though plasma has the same issue.
I think that the reason LCDs are doing so well now has a lot more to do with the amount of development that has gone into them than the intrinsic limits of the technology.
In terms of power, brightness, performance, manufacturing and overall simplicity, OLED displays seem significantly better than LCDs. There are a few small technical issues with OLEDs, but I think they could all be resolved with a few years of serious industry-wide development.
The problem is that color TFT LCDs already went through a long period of that - at a time when there were no viable competitors. OLEDs (or some other display technology) may still catch up eventually, but they have a huge game of catch-up to play before they can get there - if they ever do.
Am I reading you wrong? Most modern engines *are* 4-stroke engines...
I think that's the point, actually.
If we were going to start over and design the best way to extract usable power from gasoline from the ground up, we could probably do better than the 4-stroke, just like we could do better than the x86 ISA, and just like we could do better than LCDs for flat panel displays.
The problem is that, if you take an intrinsically inferior technology, and spend years upon years optimizing it, it will have such a head start that it is almost impossible for a newer, 'better', technology to compete.
...is (or, at least, has been) that I don't have clear boundaries between work and non-work. It makes me feel burnt out, hurts my relationships, and actually makes me less productive.
When I'm at home, I'm almost always on my PowerBook. The problem is that it's the same PowerBook I'm almost always on at work.
There's no real difference between being at work or at home, other than my surroundings. From either place, I can write code, run simulations, writeup documentation, or even talk with my coworkers online.
When I'm physically at work, I feel justified in screwing around, working on personal stuff, and even posting on/.
I've clocked myself and found that, not including time spent thinking about work, I 'work' something like 60-80 hours per week, even though I'm only paid for 40.
Recently, I've been working on building a division between work and home (given that I'm posting this from work, you might gather that's not going entirely well).
The funny thing is that, as I've made the effort to work less at home, I've found that I actually work more at work. My hours spent on 'work' have gone down, but my productivity has somehow increased. I also don't have the feeling that I'm constantly swamped and in dire need of a vacation.
I'm not saying that I'm representative. Maybe most 'integrators' are better able to balance their lives. Then again, I used to think that I could do just that.
The Dock and Exposé are two different ways to sift through windows (although Exposé seems to be triggered by Dock.app).
Exposé is available to help sort out the plethora of windows you have open, but you don't have to use it (it just turns out to be very useful).
If you set the Dock to remain visible all the time and not shrink / grow on mouse over (which is the default behavior, by the way) then all you need to do is point and click to select an open application, or point, click and hold to see a list of all of the windows for that application.
Before you say that the Dock showing applications rather than windows is a problem, I believe that the default behavior of the Taskbar (at least since some version of XP) is to consolidate all windows for a given application into a single tile, so other than not serving as a launcher, it's about the same behavior as the Dock.
That said, you make it sound like "waiting for the screen to redraw a representation of all the apps and then picking the right one" is a slow process. It's not.
I've got about 25 windows open now (which is on the light side for me). Moving the mouse to the corner takes a small fraction of a second (thanks to Fitts law and trackpad acceleration). By my crude timing (repeatedly hitting the corner to activate/ deactivate Exposé and watching the seconds on the clock in my menu bar), it takes less than half a second for all the windows to shrink to the "show all windows" or "show all windows for an application" views. Skimming through the windows to find the right one takes longer, but it's still on the order of a few seconds for me.
Using the Dock or the Task Bar takes a fraction of a second to trigger it to show, and about half a second for either to slide out into view - about the same as Exposé, but since the show/hide behavior is optional, we can ignore that. Then there's the time to sift through the applications to find the right one. Lets just assume that the applications don't move in either and you know exactly where to click. Then you can hit the right one almost immediately (another fraction of a second, at most).
Now, if you're like me and you've got 8 Mail windows open, 4 Safari windows, a few Terminal windows, and a handful of others (or their Windows equivalents), then you've still got to sift through all of those windows for each app. In my taskbar, I have to click on a tile, get a drop-down list of open windows and hope that there's enough descriptive information there that I can figure out which one I'm going for. That involves reading a few lines at least and it assumes that you can actually figure out which one you're going for (but there's so little information there that that's not a given).
So in the best case, the the Task Bar (or the Dock) will save you a bit of time relative to Exposé but that scales horribly. In those cases, you wouldn't be saving any time using Exposé (though I'd still use it out of habbit).
If you've got more than a few windows open, sifting through them in the Task Bar (or in the Dock) is slow and it might even take a few tries to get it right.
With Exposé, you can actually tell by inspection which windows are which. It's hard to describe how much better it is, but it's one of those things that once you've had, it's very hard to live without (for me, anyway). That leads me to wonder if you've ever actually used Exposé, or if you're just dismissing it arbitrarily.
I want to say that that's a feature not a bug, but I think Windows does it too by default since XP.
Maybe there's something different between your settings and mine, but if I have 5 Firefox windows open in Windows XP, they get consolidated into a single application tile in the Task Bar to save space.
To see individual windows on my XP machine, you'd either have to have just a few open, or have the consolidation turned off - in which case, the Taskbar would have to take up a significant fraction of the screen if you have more than a few windows open.
But there's a good reason why expose is more useful on OSX than windows: There is no task bar in OSX so naturally, you're forced to use expose if you want a visual representation of all of your windows.
Not to be an ass, but what exactly does the Task Bar do that the Dock doesn't?
I can click and hold on a Dock item to see a list of open windows for that application - just like the Task Bar and the little widgets in the Task Bar are homologous to items in the Menu Bar.
I can't speak about the entire UI, but there has been one big disappointment in my limited experience with Vista.
Ever since Apple added Exposé to OS X, I've been dependent on it. It's amazing how useful it is and how much I rely on it every time I use a computer.
Every time I have to use an XP machine, I find myself trying to go to the corner to show all windows for an application, or for all applications, or to show the desktop.
For that reason, I was very excited when I first heard about Flip 3D - and I thought the 3D effect was a cool addition to already impressive feature.
Unfortunately, Flip 3D almost completely missed the point.
With Exposé, you can see every non-hidden open window at once. Even though they may be thumbnail sized, I can go through more than a hundred windows at a time at a glance. If I need more detail, I can just look at all of the windows for a specific application.
It's not perfect. There are a few small things I'd like to see fixed about it (like clustering related windows together and doing a better job at keeping a given window in the same region in the Exposé view). Still, it almost completely eliminates the need for multiple desktops and vastly improves my ability to find a specific window.
Flip 3D looks cool. It shrinks all the windows to a reasonable size and layers them in a stack. Unfortunately, layering them in a stack means that you can't see everything in a given window at a glance without bring the focus to it. As far as I know, you also can't look at all of the windows for a given application, rather than all of the windows.
It's just sad.
Somehow, Microsoft managed to copy and improve upon the least useful bits of Exposé while losing almost everything that actually makes Exposé useful.
Given that one gaffe, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the same philosophy permeates Aero through and through.
If I had to guess, I'd say that it's the same reason we're still using LCDs instead of OLEDs in our flat panels.
An intrinsically inferior technology (LCDs / magnetic storage / pitted optical discs) with enough of a head start can easily outcompete an apparently superior technology (OLEDs / holographic storage) because the amount of investment it'd take just to get the more advanced technology off the ground far exceeds the amount of investment required to incrementally refine the existing technology.
I'd hardly call solid-state drives a "crackpot" technology.
I'd hardly call anything on that list a "crackpot" technology.
AI, quantum computing, holographic storage, e-books - they're all either currently being researched by a ton of academics and legitimate businesses, or (as is the case for e-books) they're actually on the market.
Where's the anti-gravity, and free-energy? How can they even make a list of crackpot technologies and leave them out?
What you say is true, but, aside from people who hang out here, it seems that an awful lot of people (myself included) place enough value in iTMS songs, music videos, TV shows, and movies that they're very happy to pay what Apple charges, despite the DRM.
This is the third time I've said this here, but *yes* I absolutely do.
I can't speak for the desktop keyboard layout, but on my PowerBook, the option key is located under my left palm (right below the 'z').
If I want to type (option-e e), I have to put my left thumb under my left palm (which is much slower than a normal keypress and it's a bit uncomfortable). I guess I could also put my left ring finger on option, while hitting e with my middle finger (but that's also slow, awkward, and uncomfortable).
Contrast that with moving my right pinky ever so slightly (1 whole key) to the right to hit ( ' ) and then hitting ( e ) with my left ring finger, as I normally would.
( 'e ) is a lot more comfortable and it takes significantly less time - something like 1 and a half beats versus 4-5 for (option-e e).
It's bad enough that even (option-c) breaks my rhythm and takes a lot longer than ( 'c ), although they have the same number of key presses.
That might not sound like much to you, but it's a big deal to me. Not so much that I'd use Windows because of it, but definitely enough to make it very annoying to write en français in OS-X.
And that's not even considering how much more obvious ( 'e ) seems than (option-e e) - though I admit that is a bit more subjective, which is why I wouldn't rest my argument on it.
First, in another post, I explained that option+e then e is a stumbling block because my thumb has to go to an awkward position under my palm. It's uncomfortable and slows me down compared with 'e (and it's much worse than you'd expect for three random keystrokes).
Second, you picked the ones that actually make some degree of sense. How would you know (other than just rote memorization) that option+' gives you æ (the ae ligature), or that option+q gives oe (the oe ligature)?
If it was located in a reasonable place, Fred A's compose key sounds like a better solution than the Mac or Windows way to me (although, I have the feeling that it'd end up being about as badly stifling as the option key is on a PowerBook/MacBook ).
On my iBook with a French keyboard, there is no key labelled with the pipe ( | ) symbol.
Wow - that really sucks. Sorry to hear that.
Beyond typing speed, which is what people seem to have focused on so far, availability of useful characters could be much improved in keyboards IMO. Although the trend now seems to be in ergonomics. And anyway it's probably too late to change the physical layout.
Slightly OT but I used to have a FingerWorks MacNTouch (until I spilled water on my PowerBook and destroyed it). It took awhile to be able to touch type on it, but once I could, it was amazing.
FingerWorks went out of business a few years back, but the rumor is that the Apple bought them for their MultiTouch patents and integrated that technology into The iPhone.
If that's true, and if Apple would take a huge risk and make a notebook with an iPhone like surface in place of the keyboard (neither of which seems terribly likely), then you could have gestures for all of the international keys, and you could change the keyboard layout at will.
Something like that might go a long way toward helping with ergonomics and getting rid of stupid layout issues (in your case, you could just install a soft-fix and rearrange your keys to get a pipe).
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I'm a Mac user and a huge fan of Apple's, but I completely agree that's bad.
One of the most frustrating things about using Firefox in OS X is that it looks and feels horribly wrong because it ignors most Mac conventions*.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I was prepared to call the article FUD before reading it... but then I noticed that it's Ars so I read it, and not only do the complaints seem valid, I don't even understand what Apple was thinking with some of the issues. For example, porting the OS X antialiasing over to Windows rather than using the native ClearType just seems weird (almost to the extent that I don't believe Ars Technica).
*Yes, I know about Camino, but that doesn't diminish my point.
Not only that but *if* people actually deemed saying fuck during prime time to be a bad thing, those people can always just change the channel, or not buy the products advertised on those shows.
I know I'm just hacking on Carlin and a thousand other comedians and broadcasters here, but I have never understood the idea that saying certain words is intrinsically harmful.
Also, the rules, such as they are(were?), are ridiculous.
You can say crap or ass with impunity but shit is "an ess bomb" that you can (could?) get a big fine for.
You can't say fuck, but you can play a clip where there's an obvious implied fuck (so obvious that, my brain just fills in what should have been there most of the time and the bleep or gap only serves to bring attention to how stupid deleting the word was in the first place).
My mistake - you're definitely right.
Somehow I was just picturing taking a few hours rebuilding world - which I haven't done in many years, but it left a very bad taste in my mouth (and - gratuitous Apple plug - that's one of the things I really don't miss since switching to OS X).
Perhaps what the GP meant wasn't that recompiling everything isn't difficult so much as slow, tedious, and annoying?
That's a great point I never would have thought of.
The fuel savings with public transport may well offset the extra fuel burnt through the turbine induced drag.I'd be shocked if the energy extracted from burning extra fuel in cars on a freeway would come close to what you'd get by burning the same fuel in a properly designed power plant (and I'm quite confident that the emissions would be worse).
I am a physicist and had the same thought.
Without a doubt, the turbines will interfere with laminar flow, increase turbulence, and increase drag.
I have no idea if the increase in drag will dominate over the increase in efficiency by reclaiming lost energy, but it's definitely something that should be studied before implementing this kind of system on a large scale.
Ah - I see what you're saying (pretty dense of me, but I was thinking of computer displays).
You definitely have a point that plasmas were first to market for large screens.
I *think* that in the case of big flat panels, there was a confounding variable - research targeted at smaller LCD panels for computer displays. All the advancements from notebook and desktop computer displays got scaled up and transferred into LCD TVs and gave them a significant advantage. Without that, I think it would actually still be a toss-up (as technologies, LCD and plasma displays both have roughly equally balanced advantages and drawbacks).
To be fair, that is getting to be a bit of a stretch.
BTW - had to look up 'grist' (though what I got from context was about right). Anyway, thanks for expanding my vocabulary - always appreciate it :-)
Actually - that is exactly what I was saying.
LCDs are not necessarily the best technology for color flat panel displays, but they have been refined so much, they can out-compete 'better' technologies.
I was actually thinking more about OLEDs than plasma, though plasma has the same issue.
I think that the reason LCDs are doing so well now has a lot more to do with the amount of development that has gone into them than the intrinsic limits of the technology.
In terms of power, brightness, performance, manufacturing and overall simplicity, OLED displays seem significantly better than LCDs. There are a few small technical issues with OLEDs, but I think they could all be resolved with a few years of serious industry-wide development.
The problem is that color TFT LCDs already went through a long period of that - at a time when there were no viable competitors. OLEDs (or some other display technology) may still catch up eventually, but they have a huge game of catch-up to play before they can get there - if they ever do.
I think that's the point, actually.
If we were going to start over and design the best way to extract usable power from gasoline from the ground up, we could probably do better than the 4-stroke, just like we could do better than the x86 ISA, and just like we could do better than LCDs for flat panel displays.
The problem is that, if you take an intrinsically inferior technology, and spend years upon years optimizing it, it will have such a head start that it is almost impossible for a newer, 'better', technology to compete.
...is (or, at least, has been) that I don't have clear boundaries between work and non-work. It makes me feel burnt out, hurts my relationships, and actually makes me less productive.
When I'm at home, I'm almost always on my PowerBook. The problem is that it's the same PowerBook I'm almost always on at work.
There's no real difference between being at work or at home, other than my surroundings. From either place, I can write code, run simulations, writeup documentation, or even talk with my coworkers online.
When I'm physically at work, I feel justified in screwing around, working on personal stuff, and even posting on /.
I've clocked myself and found that, not including time spent thinking about work, I 'work' something like 60-80 hours per week, even though I'm only paid for 40.
Recently, I've been working on building a division between work and home (given that I'm posting this from work, you might gather that's not going entirely well).
The funny thing is that, as I've made the effort to work less at home, I've found that I actually work more at work. My hours spent on 'work' have gone down, but my productivity has somehow increased. I also don't have the feeling that I'm constantly swamped and in dire need of a vacation.
I'm not saying that I'm representative. Maybe most 'integrators' are better able to balance their lives. Then again, I used to think that I could do just that.
You're kidding, right?
The Dock and Exposé are two different ways to sift through windows (although Exposé seems to be triggered by Dock.app).
Exposé is available to help sort out the plethora of windows you have open, but you don't have to use it (it just turns out to be very useful).
If you set the Dock to remain visible all the time and not shrink / grow on mouse over (which is the default behavior, by the way) then all you need to do is point and click to select an open application, or point, click and hold to see a list of all of the windows for that application.
Before you say that the Dock showing applications rather than windows is a problem, I believe that the default behavior of the Taskbar (at least since some version of XP) is to consolidate all windows for a given application into a single tile, so other than not serving as a launcher, it's about the same behavior as the Dock.
That said, you make it sound like "waiting for the screen to redraw a representation of all the apps and then picking the right one" is a slow process. It's not.
I've got about 25 windows open now (which is on the light side for me). Moving the mouse to the corner takes a small fraction of a second (thanks to Fitts law and trackpad acceleration). By my crude timing (repeatedly hitting the corner to activate/ deactivate Exposé and watching the seconds on the clock in my menu bar), it takes less than half a second for all the windows to shrink to the "show all windows" or "show all windows for an application" views. Skimming through the windows to find the right one takes longer, but it's still on the order of a few seconds for me.
Using the Dock or the Task Bar takes a fraction of a second to trigger it to show, and about half a second for either to slide out into view - about the same as Exposé, but since the show/hide behavior is optional, we can ignore that. Then there's the time to sift through the applications to find the right one. Lets just assume that the applications don't move in either and you know exactly where to click. Then you can hit the right one almost immediately (another fraction of a second, at most).
Now, if you're like me and you've got 8 Mail windows open, 4 Safari windows, a few Terminal windows, and a handful of others (or their Windows equivalents), then you've still got to sift through all of those windows for each app. In my taskbar, I have to click on a tile, get a drop-down list of open windows and hope that there's enough descriptive information there that I can figure out which one I'm going for. That involves reading a few lines at least and it assumes that you can actually figure out which one you're going for (but there's so little information there that that's not a given).
So in the best case, the the Task Bar (or the Dock) will save you a bit of time relative to Exposé but that scales horribly. In those cases, you wouldn't be saving any time using Exposé (though I'd still use it out of habbit).
If you've got more than a few windows open, sifting through them in the Task Bar (or in the Dock) is slow and it might even take a few tries to get it right.
With Exposé, you can actually tell by inspection which windows are which. It's hard to describe how much better it is, but it's one of those things that once you've had, it's very hard to live without (for me, anyway). That leads me to wonder if you've ever actually used Exposé, or if you're just dismissing it arbitrarily.
I want to say that that's a feature not a bug, but I think Windows does it too by default since XP.
Maybe there's something different between your settings and mine, but if I have 5 Firefox windows open in Windows XP, they get consolidated into a single application tile in the Task Bar to save space.
To see individual windows on my XP machine, you'd either have to have just a few open, or have the consolidation turned off - in which case, the Taskbar would have to take up a significant fraction of the screen if you have more than a few windows open.
Not to be an ass, but what exactly does the Task Bar do that the Dock doesn't?
I can click and hold on a Dock item to see a list of open windows for that application - just like the Task Bar and the little widgets in the Task Bar are homologous to items in the Menu Bar.
I can't speak about the entire UI, but there has been one big disappointment in my limited experience with Vista.
Ever since Apple added Exposé to OS X, I've been dependent on it. It's amazing how useful it is and how much I rely on it every time I use a computer.
Every time I have to use an XP machine, I find myself trying to go to the corner to show all windows for an application, or for all applications, or to show the desktop.
For that reason, I was very excited when I first heard about Flip 3D - and I thought the 3D effect was a cool addition to already impressive feature.
Unfortunately, Flip 3D almost completely missed the point.
With Exposé, you can see every non-hidden open window at once. Even though they may be thumbnail sized, I can go through more than a hundred windows at a time at a glance. If I need more detail, I can just look at all of the windows for a specific application.
It's not perfect. There are a few small things I'd like to see fixed about it (like clustering related windows together and doing a better job at keeping a given window in the same region in the Exposé view). Still, it almost completely eliminates the need for multiple desktops and vastly improves my ability to find a specific window.
Flip 3D looks cool. It shrinks all the windows to a reasonable size and layers them in a stack. Unfortunately, layering them in a stack means that you can't see everything in a given window at a glance without bring the focus to it. As far as I know, you also can't look at all of the windows for a given application, rather than all of the windows.
It's just sad.
Somehow, Microsoft managed to copy and improve upon the least useful bits of Exposé while losing almost everything that actually makes Exposé useful.
Given that one gaffe, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the same philosophy permeates Aero through and through.
If I had to guess, I'd say that it's the same reason we're still using LCDs instead of OLEDs in our flat panels.
An intrinsically inferior technology (LCDs / magnetic storage / pitted optical discs) with enough of a head start can easily outcompete an apparently superior technology (OLEDs / holographic storage) because the amount of investment it'd take just to get the more advanced technology off the ground far exceeds the amount of investment required to incrementally refine the existing technology.
I'd hardly call anything on that list a "crackpot" technology.
AI, quantum computing, holographic storage, e-books - they're all either currently being researched by a ton of academics and legitimate businesses, or (as is the case for e-books) they're actually on the market.
Where's the anti-gravity, and free-energy? How can they even make a list of crackpot technologies and leave them out?
What you say is true, but, aside from people who hang out here, it seems that an awful lot of people (myself included) place enough value in iTMS songs, music videos, TV shows, and movies that they're very happy to pay what Apple charges, despite the DRM.
Yeah it was a stupid size. Way too big for your pocket, but small compared with almost anything you'd be carrying it in.
Just wanted to add my "me too" (especially if it had a MultiTouch surface with a Wacom pen).
How can you be so sure?
I mean - maybe the terrorists have developed a sense of humor and antimatter weaponry.
...in a post-9/11 U.S.A.Oh come on. Are you high?
And this got modded insightful?
This is the third time I've said this here, but *yes* I absolutely do.
I can't speak for the desktop keyboard layout, but on my PowerBook, the option key is located under my left palm (right below the 'z').
If I want to type (option-e e), I have to put my left thumb under my left palm (which is much slower than a normal keypress and it's a bit uncomfortable). I guess I could also put my left ring finger on option, while hitting e with my middle finger (but that's also slow, awkward, and uncomfortable).
Contrast that with moving my right pinky ever so slightly (1 whole key) to the right to hit ( ' ) and then hitting ( e ) with my left ring finger, as I normally would.
( 'e ) is a lot more comfortable and it takes significantly less time - something like 1 and a half beats versus 4-5 for (option-e e).
It's bad enough that even (option-c) breaks my rhythm and takes a lot longer than ( 'c ), although they have the same number of key presses.
That might not sound like much to you, but it's a big deal to me. Not so much that I'd use Windows because of it, but definitely enough to make it very annoying to write en français in OS-X.
And that's not even considering how much more obvious ( 'e ) seems than (option-e e) - though I admit that is a bit more subjective, which is why I wouldn't rest my argument on it.
Two things.
First, in another post, I explained that option+e then e is a stumbling block because my thumb has to go to an awkward position under my palm. It's uncomfortable and slows me down compared with 'e (and it's much worse than you'd expect for three random keystrokes).
Second, you picked the ones that actually make some degree of sense. How would you know (other than just rote memorization) that option+' gives you æ (the ae ligature), or that option+q gives oe (the oe ligature)?
If it was located in a reasonable place, Fred A's compose key sounds like a better solution than the Mac or Windows way to me (although, I have the feeling that it'd end up being about as badly stifling as the option key is on a PowerBook/MacBook ).
Wow - that really sucks. Sorry to hear that.
Beyond typing speed, which is what people seem to have focused on so far, availability of useful characters could be much improved in keyboards IMO. Although the trend now seems to be in ergonomics. And anyway it's probably too late to change the physical layout.Slightly OT but I used to have a FingerWorks MacNTouch (until I spilled water on my PowerBook and destroyed it). It took awhile to be able to touch type on it, but once I could, it was amazing.
FingerWorks went out of business a few years back, but the rumor is that the Apple bought them for their MultiTouch patents and integrated that technology into The iPhone.
If that's true, and if Apple would take a huge risk and make a notebook with an iPhone like surface in place of the keyboard (neither of which seems terribly likely), then you could have gestures for all of the international keys, and you could change the keyboard layout at will.
Something like that might go a long way toward helping with ergonomics and getting rid of stupid layout issues (in your case, you could just install a soft-fix and rearrange your keys to get a pipe).
Wish I could claim English isn't my first language to excuse that.
I was thinking something more like "when we are actually in about 99% agreement" or "when we actually agree about 99% of this".
Obviously, I should have actually read what came up when I hit the preview button rather than just skimming it for formatting.
I'd imagine that the odds of a similar (or worse) error in this post are about 99% as well.