Comments on: Mockingbird, Cappuccino, and what really matters.

By: Alfred Morgan

Alfred Morgan — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:08:10 +0000

Re: Scrollbars

I agree with you, if scrollbars work users won't complain. Guess what? MockingBirds scrollbars are broken. Why? I am using a Mac, my scrollbar settings is set to arrows Together and Jump to the spot that's clicked. Mockingbird has arrows At top and bottom and Jump to the next page.
Mockingbird's scrollbars are broken to me.
Solve that problem and you will make me a believer. For now I'm going to side with native scrollbars are best.

-alfred

By: tolmasky

tolmasky — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:04:45 +0000

We are definitely looking into this, I haven't replied because I think it deserves an entire post of its own, which I will be putting together once Atlas work cools down a bit.

By: Josh Stone

Josh Stone — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:34:30 +0000

Definitely interested in accessibility. Is anyone able to comment?

We're developing a I site in the UK that has to comply with the Disability Discriminations Act. I'm pushing using the Cappuccino frameworks (i think they're great!) but one of the big downers for us is the lack of support for our disabled customers.

By: Martin Pilkington

Martin Pilkington — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:08:25 +0000

Of course one issue you didn't cover is accessibility. Are you guys managing to make any progress in that front?

By: tolmasky

tolmasky — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:10:14 +0000

We are one of the few frameworks that goes out of our way to make it clear when *not* to use. You are precisely correct that cnn.com and nytimes.com should not use Cappuccino. Take a look at any of my presentations and you will see that this is precisely the first thing I always say.

The reason for Cappuccino is that just as I wouldn't want a "widgety" cnn.com, I also don't want a "pagey" powerpoint or photoshop, it would be equally terrible. This of course holds true of Mockingbird as well.

By: boucher

boucher — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:54:19 +0000

Ken, you're right. We're very upfront about the fact that not everything makes sense as a desktop-class app. Cappuccino isn't designed to do everything, just this specific type of application. And we think that focus is one of the best parts of Cappuccino.

There's plenty of room on the web for pure documents, dynamic pages, and full blown apps.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:29:02 +0000

An old coworker I still follow on Twitter is very fond of your work in Cappuccino, and I must say, it's an impressive feat.

I agree that focusing on "native" controls is misguided, but for another reason: it isn't that web apps have native controls, it's that they usually don't use "desktop" widgets/controls at all.

To put it another way, Cappuccino makes the assumption that desktop apps are always better (as is implied on its homepage, where it boasts "desktop-caliber" apps). Assuming desktop apps are better, let me pose a question to you: What would Google, Facebook, or CNN.com be like as desktop apps?

Probably a lot different. If I imagine Google Search as a desktop app, what comes to mind is something like Windows Help search: A fixed toolbar with a search box and a sophisticated listbox type document panel below it; with only the document panel scrollable.

I imagine CNN as a multi-document "MDI" application with a menu bar for types of stories and individual panels popping up for each article. Facebook? I guess it would be like Outlook?

What the web makes different is that, as a technology, it traditionally hasn't pushed you into using very many widgets at all. Instead, everything is presented more or less as a fluid document. GUI apps speak with icons, while web apps speak in complete sentences.

Facebook, for example, is very much a hybrid I have trouble imaging in something like Cappuccino or a pure extjs GUI. Facebook looks like a document with custom widgets littered throughout. And its widgets are richly customized, far more so than a traditional desktop app.

The reason I hesitate to consider things like Cappuccino is that actually, I usually prefer document-oriented web apps to widget-oriented desktop apps. Cappuccino seems orthogonal to that philosophy.

There probably are cases when you want a heavily widget-oriented application (calendar comes to mind), but in general, I don't want my web app to look, feel, or have the layout of a desktop app.

My two cents.
-Ken

By: hypermark

hypermark — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:43:13 +0000

Excellent post. In my experience, customers/users care about outcomes, they don't care about attributes. In other words, if you can deliver a superior outcome, such as a better user experience, whether its native, web or some hybrid doesn't really matter (so long as there is no fundamental gotcha).

By: peter taylor

peter taylor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:27:49 +0000

I wonder how much outcry there has been about those crazy new scrollbars in Google Wave?

All seems abit “meh of a meh-ness” to me

By: Karl

Karl — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:49:33 +0000

“”"
You should take a look at their Cappuccino application EnStore and try to argue that this thing doesn’t feel great
“”"
Looks fine except for the flash of white after you edit the tag list. I also find the dark gray drop zone ugly, but that's opinion. The problem is the uncanny valley of interfaces, the closer you try to emulate something the more of this sort of things shows.