TARS Beta 1 released to the public

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Headspace
Posts: 101
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:59 am

TARS Beta 1 released to the public

Post by Headspace »

:dance:

I just released TARS Beta 1 to the public. Tars also has a website for purposes of hosting the beta and providing an online manual and FAQ that can be updated easily (among other things). You can go to the site to download it. It'll be mirrored at the two major community filesharing repositories as well.

Thanks again to everyone who helped test; this is definitely not the type of project you can release by yourself. I cannot stress how much I appreciate your efforts.

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Tigershark
Posts: 410
Joined: Wed Jun 09, 2010 5:56 am

Re: TARS Beta 1 released to the public

Post by Tigershark »

HS,
I would like to propose a change to the UI.
I have seen a few people get confused by the "Stand By" checkbox and this is because it is like "ticking" a negative.

For example, ticking a box that said "Turn off computer" is strange for people because you are ticking something that seems to be something that should be in a "switched on" state.

I wonder if we can't think of another mechanism to do this. Perhaps a button labeled "Place in Stby Mode" which updates the label and then changes button text to "Make Active".

I can't quite put my finger on why but a chcekbox for this seems counter intuitive. Perhaps it's because checkboxes often represent a state rather than performing an action and that's why it confuses a little. I have seen new users of TARS get confused by this. Of course when you work it out you committ to it to memory but in the interests of perfection (and I know you like that HS :-) ) you may want to consider a new mechanism.

Just food for thought.

Although haveing said that, a quick browse of the Apple Human Interface Design Guidelines seems to validate your choice:
"Checkbox Usage
Use a checkbox when you want to allow users to choose between two opposite states, actions, or values. If you want to provide a set of choices from which users can choose only one, use a set of radio buttons instead (see “Radio Buttons” for more on this control)."
I don't know why but it just doesn't "feel" right. Then again, might be time for me to take my meds :-)


*** Update:

Just looked at the screen again. The "Install TARS" should defnitely be a button with some kind of status message set rather than a checkbox.
Image
Sticking feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken.

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