Stupid logic (programmers logic)

[growler_south]

I can drop files onto Quicklaunch buttons, so why not taskbar buttons? And why the patronising admonishment instead of just DOING WHAT I WANT OR DOING NOTHING AT ALL?



-It must have been easier to code If(drop onto taskbar button) Then(display annoying and insulting window) than it would be to code If(drop onto taskbar button) then(open dropped item in application)

I could understand if it was an oversight, IE dropping files onto taskbar buttons did nothing at all. But someone thought about it and decided that their way was so good, it was to be the ONLY way.

Grrrr...

Comments

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

Well, actually, it does make sense. Sorta.

The icons on the Quick-Launch bar represent applications that aren't running. So dropping a file on them means "run this app with that file". Simple enough.

But a taskbar button represents a window, not an application. So does it mean that the file should replace whatever is in that window? Probably not. Should it cause a single-file-at-a-time app like Notepad to launch another copy of itself? Probably not.

The essential problem here is that the Windows UI design opted to manage windows, not applications. But what users really want to deal with is applications. It was, to my eyes, shortsighted and lazy. (Or necessary to avoid a lawsuit.) MacOS got it right.

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

Yes.... I know it represents a window, i just want to drop the file into the window, like I would if the window was visible. I'd like to see Windoze treat DropOntoButton the same as DropIntoWindow.

I guess there are applications where dropping into different parts of the window result in different actions, and it could be unfortunate if a file got dropped into the wrong part of the program.

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

Yea, they should have made it do *something* useful. The dialog was the worst possible solution.

Donald A. Norman has some great books on the subject, and one of his rules of thumb is that if you have to add a written note to explain how to use something, it's designed wrong. This is a great example of that.