Rob Relyea: Software Should

Resizable dialogs are important, especially when you have any scrollbars.

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:39:20 GMT

If a dialog has scrollbars, it should also be resizable and save the last size & location it was given.

Windows Vista's wireless network dialog below is not resizable, yet it often has more entries than I can see at one time. Wouldn't it just be easier if everybody could use the <Grid> element...

[Good morning today...went running and took the bus to work.]

Software should adapt to the size/aspect ratio that the user gives to the application

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:09:43 GMT

A couple of fun games built on Silverlight:

1) ZeroGravity: http://ltbennett.com

2) Destroy All: http://andybeaulieu.com/silverlight/DestroyAll/ (I like how you can play the game using images from Virtual Earth!)

Notice that they take very different approaches to sizing. ZeroGravity takes all available space based on the size that the user gives the browser window. DestroyAll has a fixed size...which looks really lame on my 1600x1200 monitor.

Software should improve by fixing crash reports from users

Tue, 29 May 2007 22:31:10 GMT

Guideline: Software should use a feedback loop to fix problems that customers are running into.

If you make Windows software (including a WPF application or xbap), you can get crash reports that consumers submit through Windows. Seems like the requirements are that you have a VeriSign ID (also called a Software Publisher's Digital ID for Authenticode).

The winqual.microsoft.com site has the following details:

Windows Error Reporting (WER) and Crash Data
WER is a set of technologies built into Microsoft Windows XP and the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system that captures product crash data and makes it possible for end-users to report the information. Software and hardware vendors can then analyze and respond to these problems. With WER and Microsoft Windows Update, you can identify problems and provide solutions.

WER: Getting Started
How WER Helps Customers
How WER Works
How WER Collects and Classifies Error Reports

For searchability: Watson Crash Dump

Good Reading for Microsoft Employees:
While searching for how to do this, I ran across this rant about how different software companies care for developers.

HDView Comparisons

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:32:37 GMT

JD (of Adobe) doesn't like that MS Research's HDView project (that I pointed to the other day) runs in IE only.

He points to Hal9000, a Flash app, that is also rendering mega-zoomable experiences.

My usability thoughts:

HDView: resizing the browser window will resize the size of the picture, not so for the Hal9000 solution...it seems to like ~800 x 600
HDView: the scroll wheel works...and has a smooth transition, Hal9000solution doesn't.
Hal9000: clicking on a place in the photo zooms in (but with no transition effect).
Both: escape key works the same on both...zooms you all the way out. Like that.
HDView: has a nice feature to remember the URL of a specific view.

[update: ok, forgot about this...but I just reran Hal9000] Hal9000: loud intro with the "skip" offer...I couldn't hit skip and sound off fast enough!

What I think works best for these kind of things is:

1) information publishers should publish in open formats, instead of locking people into only one front end or web experience (don't just create a closed web site)

2) viewers (in browser or out of browser) can grow based on user needs. If the data is critical/interesting enough, people will build lots of great viewers.

Software Feedback: Using Ricciolo PaperBoy 0.2 (WPF RSS Reader)

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:54:47 GMT

I noticed a new RSS reader called Ricciolo PaperBoy on the WPF Application list a few days ago. (I link to that applist at the top left of my blog: rrelyea.spaces.live.com...in case you forget the applist url) It is a codeplex project. This morning I'm doing my RSS reading in it and keeping track of my opinions.

My experience with RSS readers is not deep:

The first reader I used was newsgator, which was integrated with Outlook. I liked the ability to easily forward posts to my coworkers.
I now use IE's RSS functionality and do my RSS reading along with my web surfing.

Will somebody build an experience that is rich enough to get me to have a dedicated app or xbap...I think so, but lets see how it develops. Giving my feedback will make it more likely.

Impressions

Opportunity: the first time I ran this v0.2 project, i was getting several runtime exceptions. (today I haven't hit them at all. - Spoke too soon...I got some when I view certain posts...like mine.)

Nice: When I was getting those exceptions, a "phone home" feature took action to report the problem to the app author. Good promise in this area...dr. watson crash reporting like...

Nice: WPF based reading experience is pleasant. Modeled like Outlook with folders for each feed, lists of posts, and a previews screen.

Opportunity: Should consider using multiple columns via FlowDocuments in WPF (ala Times Reader) I read most of my content on a 20 in. lcd monitor, and columns are very nice.

Opportunity: similar to the last one, I'd love scaling text like Times Reader.

Nice: uses the IE RSS store. Things I read with PaperBoy show up as read in IE's RSS reading experience

Opportunity: I want an easier way to navigate through the unread posts...ideally I could enter a new posts only mode and use only arrow keys like with the Times Reader...right arrow - next post...down arrow - next page of this post, etc... (not sure that is the right model...but I don't want to touch my mouse as it appears I have to now.)

(Update: I just found that space cycles through unread messages. But it seems like I still have to use the mouse to jump to the next feed with unread posts??? Also, it is odd that you first go to the latest post and read that, but when you press space it jumpst to the oldest unread post...so you end up reading post 10, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 if you had already read 1-4.)

Nice: transition animation when you click on one post to another (the text content fades in - via opacity?)

Opportunity: Make it easy to read comments, post a comment, etc... I don't want to have to go to the html page.

Nice: clicking on a link in a post to an html page, opens a new tab with IE hosted inside that Tab (via WinForms BrowserObject or WPF's Frame?) Seems smooth. Mousing over the tab gives you a thumbnail preview of the page.

Nice: "Open Item"/Into New Window - opens the post in IE for me...I like this to collect posts that I want to comment on, blog about, etc...

Opportunity: Similar to that last "nice"...how can an rss reader help me collect lists of posts and create a blog post with a list of links, titles, and my comments.

Opportunity: Help/About doesn't list where to get the app...some URL...perhaps I forgot where I got it from...

Opportunity: I had to download a zip and run an .exe!! Would much prefer to install via a click on a .application! (is codeplex the issue here?)

Your PaperBoy Thoughts

Give it a try...what other things do you find nice and what other opportunities do you see?

Your RSS Reader Thoughts

What is your favorite RSS reader? Why?

What is your favorite WPF based RSS reader? How can/should it improve to be more competitive?

My Closing Thoughts

After an hour of using this reader...it has potential...I'll start using it daily and see how it goes. Would love to see the issues above addressed!

I registered as a user on codeplex and posted a comment in the PaperBoy forum.

All blog renderings should be easily referable: Title w/ Link

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 13:27:43 GMT

Windows Live Spaces and many other blog sites should make the blog title be a hyperlink, so that it is simple to refer to a blog post.

It was easy on Tim's site:

Great WPF Applications #10: Daily Mail, Seattle P-I, forbes.com, New York Times

[note: I just noticed that Tim's site (blogs.msdn.com) has those nice links when you look at several posts at one time (http://blogs.msdn.com/tims), but doesn't have that nice link when you go to see one post.]

On my blog, currently hosted on Windows Live Spaces, I generally need to do several steps:

If not viewing a post specific URL, click on Permalink at the bottom of the post.
Copy Title and paste it to destination
Copy Url from Address bar
Select title in destination, press ctrl-k, paste in URL

Aaaaggghhh!

Has anybody wrote a set of guidelines for blog post renderings yet?

Software Should Be Secure, Authenticated, Reliable, etc...

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 19:14:22 GMT

Windows Vista has some great capabilities that will help you build Quality Applications.

Software Should Remember UserSettings - does yours?

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 14:00:58 GMT

I'm curious how most developers out there are currently saving user settings in WPF, WinForms, other?

For example: remembering the Window size and location, the zoom setting, recently viewed documents, etc...

My.Settings & Properties.Settings.Default

Are you using My.Settings (VB) and Properties.Settings.Default (C#)?

If so, what else do you want from it?
What could it do better?

Are you happy with the VS designer for it?
How could it be improved?

Other Techniques

What other techniques are you using?
Why?

Why do I ask?

I doing some thinking in this area...building a Sample that does some XAML integration with the Settings object. I'd love to know what you think...