Month: April 2005

Making OS X more usable for seniors

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In helping my father set up his new iMac, I found it necessary to modify many settings to make it easier for him to use the computer.

Although he has a strong interest in digital photography, and an active email communication with his friends, he’s always found computers to be a challenge. After years of struggling with a Windows-based laptop, he finally purchased an iMac, and it was quite a revelation. Tasks he had always wanted to be able to do now became possible. However, the OS X interface still needed adjustments to make it comfortable for him to use.

As we grow older, we become farsighted, motor coordination diminishes, and it is more difficult to learn completely new concepts. If you have never used a computer before, the metaphors we take for granted will make no sense. Icons, folders, desktops, windows all seem like byzantine concepts with no relation to the task at hand , and the entire language associated with them must be learned from scratch.

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Breaking out of Dreamweaver for PC’s interface

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If you’ve found the new DreamweaverMX 2004 for Windows interface as confining as I did, you will know the frustration of trying to get more room for your work out of the screen. I have 2 monitors, so had plenty of horizontal space, but I could not get rid of the Properties panel and other items that were taking up vertical real estate.

It took me several months to figure out that they can be dragged out of the interface. Why the actual PAGE cannot be similarly dragged, I don’t know, except that it is more consistent with the irritating way that Powerpoint’s interface behaves on a PC. An example of 2 panels hogging space is shown below with the Design and Files panels.. I realize the panels could be set to not be on top, but I wanted them OUT of there – over on the left monitor, without having to make the entire interface 2 monitors wide, which causes other problems.

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Testing: form fields don’t display content in Safari in cloned node

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The code for the 3 column layout for this blog is partly borrowed from smokinggun.com and iht.com. However now I see why they don’t put images and form elements in the article body itself!

The images and text area fields make it difficult for the script to calculate a good 1/3 column height to correctly position the duplicate columns vertically, and I’m having problems with Safari not showing the contents of text-area form fields within the article layers. I believe it has something to do with the fact that Safari uses the Apple web widgets instead of standard form widgets. Perhaps the text is on another layer that I’m not aware of.

It will take some time to work out a solution, so bear with me. I’m going to make the code in relevant pages accessible as soon as possible.

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