Maybe I'm potty, but what with GIMP and LiveCode (my 2 main "ports of call") both having
non-unified GUIs I can honestly say I do NOT like single window GUIs.
A) Gimp has a unified GUI as illustrated in my 7 apps working in harmony image above
27 Docked Palettes, One Window
- GimpDockedPalettesUnifiedUI.png (84.73 KiB) Viewed 11568 times
B) opinions of stubborn old men who are resistant to modern paradgims (like Scratch for instance) are not going to be attracting new users to the platform,
You have one chance to make a first impression, and if that first impression directly opposes the
expected paradigm, you lose the customer, user, valuable feedback and more imporantly any potential influence on any person that comes after the one you just lost.
You see that in LC forums. People come along, they ask a question, there's nobody to answer the question, and the person asking is never seen again. I was digging around in posts and found that Bill asked about something in May 2018, didn't get a response until December, he didn't show up in the forums again for three years.
just saw the same thing on the LC subreddit. 15 days no response, and that's after they couldn't get any help in
/r/codinghelp
First Impressions Matter: 8 Surefire User Interface Design Tips
1. Limit choices.
Don’t provide an overwhelming number of options or preferences for your users. Too many choices can be intimidating and confusing and can make people not enjoy using your app. Your job is to design the software, which means choosing what it should do. Don’t take the easy way out and provide loads of options for your users all at one time.
2. Be familiar.
Sometimes you may need to implement an entirely new user interface metaphor in order to design your app. But typically this is unnecessary. Though it can be fun creating new and snazzy UI layouts, your users will likely not appreciate them much. Why? Because they won’t understand them or won’t know how to use them. A unique UI design isn’t always practical – stick to what people are familiar with.
I'm totally used to sloppy windows all over the place LC, but we three are old men, we are not born and raised to unified interface iOS/Android single finger UIs and we are standing right now on a deserted isle, building a bonfire that says "We hate your new fangled paradigms and your despicable neatness , go away" will not attract the brains necessary to maintain the platform.
Mac only solutions won't work for Windows users or Linux users, and non-uniform multi-window/palette solutions will never be portable to handheld devices like iPad or Android, like
Codea,
RapidClipse,
Kintone,
Visual Studio Code
How many potential users have we lost from just that list? 80.9 million iPad users, not coming here anytime soon.
In the Stack Overflow 2019 Developer Survey, Visual Studio Code was ranked the most popular developer environment tool, with 50.7% of 87,317 respondents reporting that they use it. Visual Studio Code was first announced on April 29, 2015, by Microsoft at the 2015 Build conference.
Three years to enamor 43,658 active developer nerds who use Stackoverflow. LC forums went online in 2006, fifteen years they registered 119,000 odd users. Almost 20 years and still no iOS or Android IDE.
If The IDE is does not work consistantly on all platforms then tutorials won't be consistant across platforms. LC already has that issue with their tutorials where things are very Mac-centric.
I'm not saying make a unified UI overnight, but it should be on a to-do list so that the appropriate research on how to make it happen is acquired and applied when time permits. We should be moving in a direction where the iDE looks like a 21st Century app.
