[fpc-pascal] SysLocale.PriLangID vs Mac OS X localization

[Jonas Maebe]

On 24 Jun 2008, at 09:29, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:

> But for a company that has 'Think different' as a motto the
> insistence on adherence to the rules is ironic :-)

Actually, it makes perfect sense since it's apparently so different  
from what you are used to that you consider it a completely outlandish  
concept.

> Secondly, all things you mention apply to advanced users only,

Compared to your customers, most Mac users probably are "advanced".  
Most certainly not because they are smarter or better, but because the  
consistency makes it easier to become advanced (learned skills carry  
over much more easily from one application to another). Even my mother  
is probably "advanced" in this way, even though she also started out  
with simply memorising which icons to click in which order (she really  
is everything but a computer person).

> and I dare say to developers only:
>
> I invite you to visit ALL our customers.

I invite you to ask on any number of "regular joe" Mac sites, forums  
or mailing lists how important the people there think that it is for a  
program to adhere to the standard user interface conventions (except  
for games, where total immersion into the game world is often more  
important, and simple widgets where you only have a text field and a  
button or so).

That said: if people are in front of your application five days out of  
seven from 9 to 5, it is indeed probably less important to be  
consistent with anything else. The learning curve may be fairly steep,  
but that doesn't matter since companies always provide training. Users  
may notice the different interface in the beginning but since they're  
so often in front of it, it will soon enough blend into the  
background. They'll also learn the layout and the automatisms required  
to operate the application after a while (no matter how contrived the  
interface may be: we even have administrative people at our university  
who have learned to be somewhat efficient with our SAP implementation,  
which is universally recognised by everyone here as a the most  
horrible user interface they have ever used).

This is however quite different from an application which isn't  
purchased by some PHB, but by a home user or independent professional  
(and traditionally that market has been much bigger than the corporate  
one in the Mac world). In that market, blending in and making your  
interface as little distinctive as possible is vital to be able to  
close the sale in most cases (at least in the Mac market).

Even in the corporate world actually paying attention to user  
interface consistencies could probably help the users a lot, but there  
it's seldom the users who can decide on what to use. And once they do  
get used to your particular interface, it's probably even a  
competitive advantage to have a lot of proprietary concepts since  
switching to a different application would require significant  
retraining.


Jonas