great first run experience [closed] - user-interface

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Does anyone have good examples of software that has a fantastic first run experience? Some software obviously just works "out of the box". However, there is significant software that requires some configuration before it's usable.
Any examples would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Yi

I was very impressed by Opera the first time I tried it; within a week I switched from Firefox. It comes with a lot of features such as an IRC and Bittorrent client, which is important to me at school, where there is a quota of 50 megs on disk space! Most of Opera's features are eventually available/copied to Firefox as plugins, but I still prefer Opera at home because the text looks better.

Time Machine for Mac OS X 10.5. If you have a Time Capsule, all you do is flick a switch in a control panel to turn it on. When you need a backed-up file you can visually go back to a point in time when you knew it existed. You can browse your hard drive (or just the directories that were backed up at that point in time) as it was in the past to retrieve it, and when you do, you can see it being copied to the present time. Gimmicky, but now I love deleting files just so I can restore them later.

Basecamp has an incredible out-of-the-box experience. This is a result of keeping things extremely simple, having a hosted solution (no install/setup) and also brief but noticeable welcome messages explaining how to get things started.
Some other examples of things that work the first time and work perfectly as soon as you start using them would be TripIt, FogBugz and BlinkSale.

How about the iPhone? Almost all Apple product are shipped with minimal manuals.

Most things from Google are good in that regard. Firefox is alright, as is OpenOffice (albeit a bit slow, but can be tweaked).

I don't think it's possible to answer this question in absolute terms. What's a fantastic "out of the box"/"first run" experience depends on what's the expectation of the person running it. If the product meets or especially exceeds that expectation, that's a great experience.
Here's a simple example. I consider Google Chrome browser to be a great first run experience because it is simple, installs nicely, and is super fast. For some others (especially many reading stackoverflow.com), it might be flawed because their expectation is that Chrome can also seamlessly import their Firefox or whatever other plugins, which was not part of Chrome's original features. So for them, it would not be a great experience because they were expecting something that wasn't there.
Apple, iPod and iTunes are other classic examples. Many people (myself included) consider finding and buying music from iTunes a great easy experience. Many others find it appalling because until recently, the music wasn't (and some of it still isn't) DRM-free.

OS X, Parallels
Windows 7, Vista (somewhat controversial I suspect)

I would say Ubuntu has a good OOB experience. It was a very simple to get installed and running. I've never bothered with the Live CD but I hear that's also great and it's fantastic how that allows you to try Ubuntu without actually having to install it.

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Where can I get resources for developing for Mac OS Classic? [closed]

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I recently got bored and fired up my old Mac OS Classic emulator, and then got nostalgic for writing old-school applications for the system. So, my question:
Where can I get dev tools that can still target Classic? (Ideally free, since this is just for fun, but if grabbing a used version of CodeWarrior on eBay is the best way to go, so be it.)
Where can I get at least reference materials so I don't have to guess-and-check my way around Carbon/the System Toolbox?
Are there any forums still running that would be open to answering old-school Mac questions for when I get stuck?
This is purely for fun, so don't worry about how impractical this is. I know.
Where can I get dev tools that can still target Classic?
You can get Apple's command-line (yes, for Classic) developer environment, MPW, from their FTP site: ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Tool_Chest/Core_Mac_OS_Tools/MPW_etc./MPW-GM_Images/MPW-GM.img.bin .
The shell is fairly UNIXish, except it uses a completely different punctuation alphabet. Your backslashes, bangs, and angle brackets are no good here. You generally should use Commando instead of trying to forge command lines yourself; type a command like “make” and hit option-return to get a GUI for it.
Note that you will have to run MPW inside your Classic environment; there is no native Mac OS X version. NeXT's Project Builder (now Xcode) replaced it in the move to Mac OS X.
Where can I get at least reference materials so I don't have to guess-and-check my way around Carbon/the System Toolbox?
Google search for site:developer.apple.com "inside macintosh. Good luck—they've started burying this stuff. Currently, Inside Macintosh matches will be nothing but PDF and will have titles like “IM: Text”.
There used to be web versions of Inside Macintosh, alongside the PDFs, but I think those got trashed/concealed-too-well-to-find in the last shuffle of the documentation on the site.
Carbon documentation is more available than Inside Macintosh, which refers to the old Toolbox documentation. Carbon docs will usually say whether something is only available on Mac OS X or not. If the docs don't say, the headers will. Note that Carbon requires CarbonLib on Classic, and the last version of that was 1.6.1, IIRC.
Are there any forums still running that would be open to answering old-school Mac questions for when I get stuck?
You could always ask on Stack Overflow.
There used to be web versions of Inside Macintosh, alongside the PDFs, but I think those got trashed/concealed-too-well-to-find in the last shuffle of the documentation on the site.
Nope, here is a link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130111022302/http://developer.apple.com/legacy/mac/library/documentation/macos8/mac8.html
I know almost zero about Classic Mac programming, but there's quite a few members of the 68kMLA that are programmers specifically working on Classic programs in general and even some very early System 6 apps specifically.
The developer/maintainer of Clasilla (http://www.floodgap.com/software/classilla/) Mozilla port to OS 9 is a profilic poster there and that is perhaps the last major project targeting the Classic environment, for example.
The wiki also has some programming resources, eg. http://68kmla.net/wiki/C/C%2B%2B_Programming_for_68k
Not that great, but it has a download link for the MPW IDE.
Unfortunately, it is not specifically a programming forum but a Mac forum in general.
Good luck though!
The site URL is http://68kmla.net
I don't know where you can get CodeWarrior.
A lot of documentation is available in the Xcode documentation reader, though much is marked "legacy" etc. You might ask questions on Apple's carbon-dev mailing list; though classic questions may be considered off-topic, the list is pretty low traffic these days. You might also want to look at the wiki at carbondev.com.
You can get codewarrior at Macintosh Garden. There are more recent versions on the site, but this is the version used for developing Classilla, a browser for OS 9, so it is probably good. To find the more recent versions, just search for "CodeWarrior". I downloaded it myself, so can verify that it works.

Best way to create GOOD LOOKING, multi-platform, desktop Ruby apps? [closed]

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I've got an idea for an idiotically simple application, one that converts HAML and SASS into HTML & CSS files for the user by watching directory changes (like Compass). Almost all the components are already available in the community, I just need to figure out what to use for the front-end.
The catch:
It must be:
a standalone app (i.e. users must NOT be required to install Ruby or HAML),
that looks good,
and is available in several platforms (linux, mac, windows).
So far I know very little about:
RubyScript2Exe: which packages ruby applications for you
Adobe AIR: desktop-style web-development...but is it easy to integrate with Ruby?
Adobe Flex: Is this only for web-based development?
Java /jRudy: (I get scared just thinking about it)
FXRuby: a ruby GUI toolkit which is unfortunately too old-fashioned (read 'ugly') to attract the audience I'm looking to target (designers and HTML developers....no, I'm not planning to charge for it, just want to make an attractive app)
Shoes: Another ruby-based GUI toolkit that may or may not suffice...is there a GUI
builder for this?
Of course, other options are more than welcome.
If you provide an answer, please be kind enough to also leave a link to a good starter tutorial that integrates Ruby and your technology of choice?
I recently had to decide on a Windowed front end for a simple app. I looked into FXRuby, TKRuby, Shoes and WXRuby.
Shoes was the only one that helped me make my app. The rest were (probably) more powerful but the cost in complexity (compared to Shoes) seemed vast. I had never had to sit down and work with a big ugly window API before and didn't want to learn one just to achieve my simple report generator. It wasn't clear how to take code for these API's and reliably generate an executable. Shoes' built in packager works nicely for me.
The one problem I had with Shoes was the trouble getting documentation. I eventually learned that running shoes -m launches a shoes app which acts as a very useful manual. The official tutorial is a worthwhile (and short) read. That's located here.
Shoes served me well and will be my first port of call on any simple utility i choose to make in the future.
have you had a look at titanium desktop? might be what your looking for
Oh, hotness flows from my pores about this question. I believe the future of the internet lies over thisaway Cappuccino. I know it sounds like a plug but I swear, I'm just impressed as hell by 280slides and Atlas. A web framework that's built using Cocoa's interface builder and can be compiled for both Cocoa natively as well as a kickass web page by a simple drop-down box? Hot hot hot. Boiling maybe?
Limelight is another alternative. It's JRuby based and available as a binary install for Windows and OSX, or as gem for any platform. There is a tutorial and screencast linked on the Limelight homepage.
I haven't used it, but thought it was worth a mention (I did download for Windows, but couldn't get it to launch - I suspect my work proxy is causing problems).
My vote would be for Shoes as well.

Looking for some examples of GUI apps with great design [closed]

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I will start developing my next desktop application in about a month. In the past I have delivered functional software that hasn't wowed anyone, including myself, in the usability or aesthetics department.
Does anybody know of any resources or guides or even books that could showcase examples of good design in desktop software?
There seems to be a lot of resources for web apps, but such resources for desktop applications are rather slim.
I enjoyed these dot net rocks tv videos by Mark Miller on The Science of a Great User Experience really got me thinking about good ui:
http://www.dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showNum=112
http://www.dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showNum=123
Where you can really make a difference with GUI design is if you are addressing a difficult to understand concept in a GUI.
When you are doing that, creativity is critical. When dealing with complex hardware configurations (something I had to do a lot, but probably doesn't apply to you), I've had good luck going to tech manuals and tech support people and trying to completely understand the problem. Then I took the methods they used to show me (diagrams from the manuals, whiteboard drawings, etc) and tried to code them into a GUI.
Had a couple massive successes with this.
Iteration is also critical. Prototype something quickly then beg everyone you see to try it. Ask them to solve a problem, then watch where they go first and watch what they have problems with.
Address every problem and stumbling block.
Don't be afraid to throw it all away and start over, it was only prototype code.
Separate your GUI from your implementation so that you can swap out the GUI if you find a better approach.
If you want to concentrate on just one feature, have a look at ITunes' search box which filters as you type. Other software may have had this before, but this was I think the first place I encountered it.
The difference between this and classic search was an eye opener for me in terms of readability.
Auto-complete which you see in so many places is another one. I'd recommend IntelliJ IDEA for the way it took auto-completion which emacs, Visual studio etc had for ages and added autocompletion for variable names and method names in a manner which almost seemed psychic the first time you encountered it.
You can look at Thirteen23 Experiences
To make things usable, you need to make sure that you follow existing conventions for your target platform and application type.
For example, if you're developing a Windows App you'd better make sure that control-c copies, control-v pastes, control-s saves, etc. The File menu better be the leftmost item in the menu bar, and the Help menu better by the rightmost item.
If you don't follow existing conventions, users are going to get annoyed with your application very quickly.
Google for HIG. Human Interface Guidelines typically include lots of research into best-practice in user interfaces, and explain in great detail how to design each aspect of a program. Also, have a google for "user-interface hall of shame" or something like that.
In this question I mentioned GUI bloopers. Part of great design is knowing what makes bad design and why. It is actually a great book, although I don't know how much of it is available on the website.
You can check case studys on websites of GUI companys. I fund few at www.puzzlehead.com
Check there and also other sites.

What is your favorite User Interface? (web application) [closed]

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I think it would be interesting to get a programmers viewpoint on UI design.
What is your favorite User Interface that you have come across in a web application?
If possible, say a little bit about why you like it.
http://www.google.com is my favorite. Can be considered a "lack of UI" ;)
At the risk of sounding too much of a fan ... I think StackOverflow has a great UI. It is clean, without clutter (except the creeping ads!), the navigation is straight forward and yet manages to compress a fair amount of functionality.
Fairly simple features, like the coloured vote buttons to show what you have voted for, and the live preview really add to the interactive feel.
(And I don't mind the ads as long as they stay away from the flashing punch-the-monkey kind!)
Web application: Wordpress. It's so powerful, yet clean and easy to use.
Desktop application: Excel (or equivelent). Seriously, a spreadsheet is the most innovative and clever user interface ever devised. It's used for everything. I don't know what the question is, but the answer is Excel.
GMail interface is so smooth and fast that I question me why nobody had done that before.
I think Remember The Milk has a brilliantly clean and intuitive interface
Mint.com, if you trust someone else with your bank account information. It keeps track of all your transactions, lets you fill out a budget, notifies you of unusual spending trends or transactions, and lets you drill down through your spending trends to see exactly where all of your hard earned cash is going. Best of all, it's free.
(source: mint.com)
http://bbc.co.uk homepage
http://mail.google.com/
http://stackoverlow.com (that is I liked it before the introduction of ads :)
FreshBooks accounting has a very nice interface.
(Although I upvoted the answer in favor of StackOverflow)
I think stackoverflow has done a great job in many areas in terms of usability, including colour pallete, use of whitespace, anticipating user's need for information and providing or hiding appropriately, non-intrusive JS/AJAX.
Minus points for these increasingly obtrusive ads, though. :P
Gmail is also good. Honourable mention to github.com.
Update: I recently got introduced to FriendFeed. I think they have also done a fabulous job with their web UI, in terms of clean yet attractive design, plus appropriate and helpful use of Javascript and AJAX to provide for a smooth, positive user experience. Check it out.
The new Yahoo Mail UI blew me away when I first saw it. The keyboard shortcuts, drag 'n' drop, tabs, etc. really make it look and feel like a desktop app. Admittedly this quality of UI has become a lot more common on the web in the last few years, but for me at least, Yahoo Mail was the first web app in my experience to bring this kind of usability to the web.
http://fastladder.com has great UI for feedholic. I can't live without fldr's keyboard shortcuts (and some greasemonkey to change them to fit for me.)
http://www.instapaper.com is also simple and great. This is temporary storage for web resource marked as read later, and don't need password for make account because of that purpose.
For the CLI lovers out there...
http://cb.vu/
cat about.txt
Not really useful but it's quite interesting.

Is QuickSilver dead? [closed]

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After having read that QuickSilver was no longer supported by BlackTree and has since gone open source, I noticed more and more people switching to/suggesting other app launchers i.e. Buttler and LaunchBar.
Is QuickSilver still relevant? Has anyone experienced any instability since it's gone open source?
Quicksilver is still alive and well. There are at least a couple of endeavours to keep it going, up to date and restructure and clean up the code base. Check out the code from Google Code.
As for launching apps, not even Spotlight comes close to how fast it is in Quicksilver.
Of course the real joy of Quicksilver is past just launching apps and using triggers, scripts and the many plugins. My workflow goes to a new level with Quicksilver. I'd be lost without it.
Update: Since posting this I switched and use LaunchBar for a while. This was during the time that QuickSilver seemed to be almost close to death. Loved LaunchBar and didn't need to switch back to QuickSilver. Recently though, I have left LaunchBar and have been using Alfred. I would highly recommend it. For me, LaunchBar and Alfred are pretty close. But, aesthetically and operationally, Alfred suits my tastes more than LaunchBar.
It still runs stably for me. I would be miserable without it.
And yeah, I would recommend switching if you only use it for an "app launcher", but launching apps is like white belt Quicksilver. I don't know of any program that lets you simply tell your computer what to do in such a simple way. And even Spotlight won't remember the keys you usually type to identify an object or action.
Ubiquity for Firefox is pretty good, but it's locked inside a browser...
I haven't used OS X in a while, but the impression I get is that Spotlight has largely negated the reason for using a launcher in the first place. Quicksilver has some cool things like direct objects built in, but by and large it was mostly used for launching apps, and Spotlight can now do that just as fast.
I also gave up on QuickSilver for a while when Leopard came out. I tried Spotlight. I gave up on that and returned. QuickSilver is much faster, and it does so much more that I missed.
I have not noticed any instability (Leopard) running B54 (3815) - it looks like the open-source version is B56A3 though.
QuickSilver is awesome when integrated with Parallels/VMWare Fusion to launch Windows apps too. You don't get the deep integration as with the various OSX plugins, but it definitely helps the dual-OS usability.
I love QS and agree that it is so productive that I am willing to put up with its flaws. I usually have to launch it several times before it gets up and running, though. To fix that issue I created a little quicksilver launcher app.
I use quicksilver all day (on latest version of OSX); and no spotlight doesn't negate it... quicksilver is still much faster for launching applications.
After Quicksilver stopped being updated for a while, I migrated to LaunchBar. Quicksilver had some occasional crashes and could be very resource intensive. LaunchBar has largely the same functionality without these problems. It is not free though.
The one thing I do miss was using QS to quickly send attachments via email to people in my address book. Highlighting the file, activate QS, Current Selection tab Mail to.. tab Person's name was just awesome.
After the 10.5.5 update, I find Spotlight to solve 99% of the things I originally used Quicksilver for and the speed is nearly identical now. Spotlight is invaluable for finding information you may not remember where or when you last saw it. Unless a major rewrite of QS causes me to reevaluate it again, I suspect Spotlight will be all I need and use.
There are a couple branches out there that are active, I think I'm currently running B56 and loving it. I have too many scripts, triggers, objects that I rely on daily...I would be lost without it.
It's 201 and it's still running strong!
QuickSilver is still alive, and well.
You can find the hub-website for all activities at http://qsapp.com/
GitHub (used for source code and issues tracking) is at https://github.com/quicksilver/Quicksilver
The latest version, B58 (3841) is quite stable on Snow Leopard (10.6.6).
No. It's back, baby.
I didn't know Quicksilver wasn't being as actively supported.
It does all I need it to do at the moment though.
Just installed LaunchBar but I can't set it to be Option + Space to "launch", I can't deal with it not using that, I'm too use to Spotlight on Command + Space and Ctrl + Space is for VS 2008 :P

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