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Bug of the moment 2012-01-20


So close, yet so far

I am still waiting for the Windows world to figure out windowing systems.

While we wait for the netbook world itself to figure out high DPI displays, here is Adobe’s latest and greatest running on a brand new ASUS Eee PC:

In case it’s not clear (Microsoft still haven’t worked out how to indicate that a window is resizable in a meaningful way), this is a resizable dialog box. As with the previous entry, we have a program on a brand new Windows 7 computer unable to work out how much usable desktop space there is. I struggle with this myself because I have my taskbar at the top of the screen (and this makes many programs cry), but this is your bog standard bottom taskbar.

Unlike my Apple Mail example, the dialog box does scroll, and you can indeed reach every part of it:

Not sure where it thinks the OK and Cancel buttons should be, because here they’re a good distance from the bottom of the window:

Here is the dialog resized to its minimum possible size; it’s conveniently missing a scrollbar in the panel list on the left, and across the bottom of the window:

Granted, Adobe have a reputation for poor attempts at makeshift UI (for example, that Page Units menu above looks iffy), so it figures that their attempt at creating a resizable dialog box is going to be an abject failure. However, after watching the strain that the installer undergoes to get this lummox installed on the computer in the first place, I would expect something good to come out of Adobe’s overblown contraption.

PS: In Windows, it’s Tools → Options, not Edit → Preferences, which itself hasn’t been valid on a Macintosh for around eleven years. (At least Apple have now standardised this; Windows programs continue to place and name the options menu item according to whim, not convention.)


Posted 20th January 2012 – Comments and questions?