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

[Jonas Maebe]

On 24 Jun 2008, at 11:27, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

> The layout or look of the dialogs might be different, but fundamentaly
> they work identical. This is what I'm trying to get across. Any Mac or
> Windows user will be able to use the fpGUI dialogs without training!

I don't doubt that for second. Just like in case someone would move  
around all the furniture in your house and hang all paintings in a  
different place, you'd still find your way around and all your stuff  
back. But you'd lose the advantage of all acquired automatisms. You'd  
probably hit your toes right after getting out of bed because before  
there was no table leg in that place. And for a while you'd probably  
focus on the wall every time you enter a particular room because it  
doesn't look like what you unconsciously expected it to be.

For some time you may even "see" (out of the corner of your eye when  
walking by) the old painting there unless you consciously look at it.  
I had that when my bike was stolen: I didn't use it very often, but I  
passed it in the hallway every morning on my way to work. Several  
times at work I had a weird feeling and thought I should properly  
check my bike on the way home because there appeared to be something  
amiss. Only after 4 days I finally managed think of properly looking  
and saw that it was gone. The brain is really good at filling in  
details you expect to be there.

So it's not primarily about being unable to use something (except in  
really extreme cases, or possibly for people like my mother), but  
about diverting attention/time from performing some task to how to  
perform it.

> You just need to *read* the screen!!

Exactly my point. The sooner you become oblivious to the interface and  
can let muscle memory (mostly) take over, the better. Your brain also  
doesn't really read the screen half the time, it just predicts what  
will be in which place based on past experience and if something  
different happens, you'll probably only realise it after performing  
the action. Just try changing one of your applications so that it  
occasionally switches the order of yes/no buttons in dialog boxes.  
Make sure you don't do it for the "Erase hard drive" one though :)


Jonas