#GTFO for windows instal update#
#GTFO for windows instal skin#
#GTFO for windows instal full#

I’m talking to you Quicktime, WinZip and OpenFuckinOffice and every single crappy piece of shit that comes preinstalled on Dell machines. If I want you to always be on and start with windows, I will configure it. Unless you are an app that needs to be on all the time (like a firewall, or on-access AV) you have no business there. You Do Not Need and Icon in the System Tray – nor do you need to start with windows.Otherwise it’s just a distraction and annoyance.

#GTFO for windows instal skin#

If you absolutely must have big bulky toolbars, provide a mechanism to hide it, skin it or configure it. See the rule about icons – no one fucking wants your shitty UI elements in their face. I’m looking at you MS Ribbon, and assorted legion of ugly ass GTK apps. No One Wants a Fat, Ugly Toolbars – if your toolbar, status bar, and sidebar take up so much space that there is hardly any left for the actual work area, you fail at UI design.What the button does is more important than how it looks, and your power users will probably use the keyboard shortcuts anyway. Provide functionality to hide that shit – either via some minimalistic text only UI or skinning. Your UI Icons Suck – you can hire a world renowned artist to design icons and buttons for your UI so incredibly beautiful that mere glimpse of them will make people ejaculate rainbows – someone out there will still think they are fucking ugly.

#GTFO for windows instal update#

Start with a basic UI and update it dynamically as the shit is loading. Seriously, just think about it? Do you like staring at splash screens? No? Then why THE FUCK do you put them in your software? If your Splash screen is there because your application takes 5 minutes to load, and you need to use a progress bar of some sort then maybe consider #1 on this list.

#GTFO for windows instal full#

Splash Screens Suck – I can’t tell you how many times I said to myself: “boy, I love how this application shows me this big fucking ugly splash for a full minute every single fucking time I start it up”.Why? Because modal dialogs not only steal your focus, but also hold it hostage. There is absolutely no reason to make the common save, open and properties dialogs modal. Modal Dialogs Suck – sometimes modal dialogs might be necessary, but they should be used very sparingly.

It’s annoying, and it interrupts my work flow.

Stealing Focus is Evil – don’t you just love when you typing something when all of a sudden your IM client or some other app pops into the foreground? While an your app might potentially need to steal focus from it’s own window to display a dialog, it should never, ever attempt to steal focus from other applications.

As you are loading, let me do easy stuff like open the file dialog and etc… Gray out the shit that is not ready yet, or something. Then if you need to load some plugins, or libraries put a throbber somewhere in the corner. Make sure the UI pops up immediately, and that the controls are functional as soon as possible. Not in 5 minutes, not in 30 seconds but now. When I start an application, I want to use it immediately.

Making Me Wait is Annoying – every second you make the user wait for your app to launch is a second they are using to imagine strangling you with your own intestines.When designing user interface please keep these 10 things in mind: Knowing when to GTFO and let the user work in peace however is what separates a good UI from an annoying one. That’s it! Everything else just adds polished feel to your design. To me UI design roughly boils down to this: “get the fuck out of my way and let me do whatever I’m doing”. People talk about different UI paradigms, styles and etc. There are many books written on designing good user interfaces, appropriate methodologies, approaches and techniques. I present to you what I call the GTFO UI Design Philosophy.