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This program is very special. Special in almost the same way that a Great White Shark about to bite your leg off is—that is, something to avoid. It is the first REALbasic program I know of to use the new metal interface features in REALbasic 5. As such, I hate it with a vengeance equaled only by my hatred for those little inner seals in orange juice cartons that spray you with juice when you remove them.
But I would hate it even if it wasn’t metal. However since it is, this gives me a splendid opportunity to quickly review REALSoftware’s implementation of the metal interface. In a word: Horrendous. To be more specific:
Back to Rendezvous Opener. Although it contains the word “Rendezvous” in the name, it really doesn’t have much to do with Rendezvous. It brilliantly assumes that you would prefer to manually type the Rendezvous address in, instead of using, say, Rendezvous to discover it automatically. Although the author claims that “This is much more elegant than hitting Command-K to search for the Rendezvous-enabled Mac you need to access, which just wastes valuable time that could be spent doing something else.”, I have found that it is significantly MORE difficult to run over to the Mac you want to access, open its Sharing preferences, find the Rendezvous address, then run back to the original Mac and type it in.
By allowing you to type the address in manually, RO actually manages to duplicate a small part of the Connect to Server dialog. Congratulations, I look forward to the upcoming Rendezvous Manager, which will allow you to “view and click on the Rendezvous address of your choice.” This presumably would complete the duplication of the functionality in the Apple-provided dialog.
Moving away from the so-called “core functionality”, we find an interface that looks like it was created by an epileptic sheep with a copy of REALbasic. If you’re looking for a fun time, look no further: Resizing the window will result in much hilarity as the interface breaks apart like a fragile ice sculpture of Steve Ballmer falling into a volcano. As if that wasn’t enough, the interface inexplicably uses a light blue font for most of the text, presumably to conjure up images of the sea—advantageous because the company name happens to be SeaScape Software.
SeaScape Software, for a piece of software both utterly useless and uglier than a pancake with an earthworm carnival on top, not to mention the weirdly transparent icon, I award a 10.8, but only because we’ve been giving out a lot of 11’s around here lately.
Posted by jan at February 26, 2003 02:20 PM | TrackBackOh... my... god. I haven't laughed that hard in months! Thank you, Jan, for one of the best reviews I've read in a long time. I'll be sure to let others know about your fantastic site. Keep up the great work!
Posted by: Justin on February 26, 2003 02:51 PMYou forgot to mention the EMPTY FILE MENU!! What is the point of a menu if there's nothing in it?!?
Posted by: Ed H. on February 26, 2003 02:57 PMhehehehehe
Posted by: on February 26, 2003 04:20 PMThis literally is a pointless application. Rendevous was made to get rid of applications like this. It's key goal is to be noticed automatically, not to be typed into a text field.
Posted by: Etan on February 26, 2003 08:13 PMOh god, he's writing ANOTHER one.
From the VT page for this:
Note from SeaScape Software: I have been working on a new user interface all morning for the FREEWARE program, Rendezvous Manager (COMING SOON). I came up with a great solution that makes it less cluttered and adheres to Apple's User Interface standards for Mac OS X. Go to http://homepage.mac.com/seascapesoftware/html/devnotes.html for more information with a couple of pictures to show you. The new UI is much better thanks to a couple of comments I have received about the UI in Rendezvous Opener. In Rendezvous Manager, you will be able to save or delete Rendezvous addresses. Once saved, you never have to type them in again. Also, Rendezvous Manager is for people that like to have their links nice and organised (like me). :) Thanks to all for your comments - much appreciated (even the bad ones - you only learn from your mistakes). :) Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Methinks this fine individual lacks a basic understanding of what Rendezvous means. "In Rendezvous Manager, you will be able to save or delete Rendezvous addresses. Once saved, you never have to type them in again." Oh, that's a relief.
Of course, once I saw that he evidently makes his living writing lottery number generators, it all made sense. You remember the old saying, right? A lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math.
Posted by: Twirlip on February 27, 2003 12:11 AMYou neglected to mention the heinous sin of using the globe as the icon. Surely it will not be long before my dock is full of nothing but blue globes.
Posted by: John Moltz on February 27, 2003 12:38 AMI must take exception with one of your comments in your otherwise fine review. Epileptic sheep are by and large wonderful GUI engineers. If an epileptic sheep had anything to do with this software, he must have been not at all well.
Now this news about Rendevous Manager. . .he wants to basically bookmark his rendevous adresses? Oy. Or as we goats like to say, Oyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Posted by: Epileptic Goat on February 27, 2003 02:00 AMOn his site, he posts screenshots of "about dialogs".
What for?
Wow, a lot to learn from this guy.
Posted by: RealB Fan on February 27, 2003 02:28 AMAnd what about that Seascape logo on his site. Aqua is "lickable". That is "call my optician, I think I need glasses"able
Posted by: Wilko on February 27, 2003 02:37 AMCARS wrote:
"Surely it will not be long before my dock is full of nothing but blue globes."
Illness is it? First no AtAT for weeks and now no CARS? I'm not shelling out hard earned cash for you to browse message boards...
Wait, I'm not paying you? Um, carry on...
Posted by: JCD on February 27, 2003 12:13 PMJohn Moltz:
No crap, I've already got three blue globes in my dock, and several round blue/green icons.
Posted by: Jan on February 27, 2003 12:37 PMEpileptic Goat:
Sorry, I neglected to mention that it was in fact designed by an epileptic LAMB, which has not gone to UI design school.
Posted by: Jan on February 27, 2003 12:39 PMHate to be a vein of seriousness here, but RB handles brushed metal better than this app shows. A couple checkboxes, a couple lines of code, and windows resize just fine and can be dragged by clicking anywhere.
Posted by: on February 27, 2003 03:18 PMWhy would anybody use RealBasic to do this anyway? I can use Project Builder / Interface Builder and do the entire "app" in about a minute -- and no lame GUI ness.
Posted by: Scott Eaton on February 27, 2003 03:51 PMDon't you think you people are being a little harsh? My God...
Yes, he needs to go back to the drawing board with this program, and most likely he will to spite some of you people. I think everyone is entitled to a bad app once in a while. Keeps one on their toes... :)
So cut the crap and give him a break. Jeez...
Posted by: Zerozander on March 1, 2003 03:56 AMYou may have missed their line of clothes
Check out the Thong:
http://www.cafeshops.com/cp/prod.aspx?p=seascape.3977347
And their complete line of clothes:
http://www.cafeshops.com/cp/store.aspx?s=seascape
Funny
Posted by: busdriver on March 1, 2003 10:24 AMGreat site! This review had me in stitches. I loath the metal UI too and immediately checked RB 5.1 to see if the drag bug was still there, and lo and behold it was. (I guess Geoff Perlmann doesn't read this site...)
Anyway, off to Realbasic.com to report the bug. Guess what? It's already been reported and marked as closed. I guess they like it that way...
Posted by: Tonio Loewald on April 30, 2003 06:55 PM