Usability: Where did they put the file menu?
This is a screenshot of a program that plays movies: not just from a DVD in the drive, but from any supported movie file on your computer. Can you find the button to select a file? Hint: it’s not the play button, which (if there’s no video DVD in the drive) spins the drive for a bit then throws an error message.
March 7th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Is it the uh… wait… is this a trick question? Maybe there’s a key combination or something?
I’m gonna guess the “eject” button below the play button? Though this should really just make your CD tray open…
March 7th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
That button does behave as expected, and open the CD tray. It does not, however, allow you to open a file for playback.
March 8th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Obviously it must be ‘:e’
March 8th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
If only everyone would standardize on the vim interface.
March 11th, 2007 at 10:49 am
This program lands in my bin for shit apps that decides that skins are more important than clarity (many other programs have landed in such bin, including those from Microsoft, Apple, and countless open source projects)
The first clue is that it violates one my fundamental rules for programs I enjoy using, namely the “I DON’T FUCKING CARE ABOUT SKINS, BECAUSE I DON’T GIVE A SHIT IF YOUR PROGRAM TRIES TO LOOK PRETTY IF IT DOESN’T FUCKING WORK” rule. I’m a big fan of platform-native widgets.
The second rule violated is that even if you’re really set on breaking the first rule, at least skin it in a way that makes sense. I can imagine a DVD player that looks like a box I’d put near my television, I can’t quite figure out one that has decided to try to emulate the unholy cross-breeding between a cell phone and an athletic shoe.
March 11th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Hmm, I hadn’t noticed the athletic shoe ancestry. Good point.
The answer, for anyone who still cares:
It’s a little obscured by the JPEG compression, but not too badly. It’s the bottom right-most icon, not including the Play button area. It’s that arrow with the swirly circle tail. If you’re wondering how a swirly circle tail arrow means “file menu”, I don’t know. It may also occur to you that this file menu is at the maximum possible distance from where the normal file menu goes– I haven’t figured anything out on that front, either.