Mat Pridham1 wrote:
I guess I'll take one last kick as this can.
Actually no... That leaves me with not upgrading to ML and downgrading from Safari 6; which I have done, due to many decisions made about Safari and their impact on my daily work flow. This might change at some point, but certainly not until the developer tools are in a working order -- at which point I'm still pipe-dreaming that RSS will be reinstated.
sücks to be you. 😉 I don't have time to fight with my computer. I found what works and changed my viewing habits.
I missed out on a lot of OS upgrades when I was still on my G4, so I'm not going to not upgrade unless it brakes something I need to be productive, like Pro Tools.
I absolutely do use Safari for email. And these are exactly the kind of wild assumptions that prove to me that you have no real frame of reference to be having this conversation. You assume everyone lives inside your limited use-case and if they don't, they 'should just get with the program, already.' And while this kind of thinking is certainly your prerogative, I expect Apple developers to have a great deal more foresight than that.
My frame of reference is that I have eight pop/imap email accounts that I check regularly. I run a business, and am a professional musician. So I have those accounts. And then some personal accounts. Those all go into Outlook which then sorts them into 18 folders. Do that with a web based email account. Tell me you can check that many accounts and folders with one glance. I do have three web based email accounts like gmail. I use the Google Notifier app to see when there's new mail there.
So what's my thinking? An unorganized person that loses 15 minutes every time I switch a task, like reading email, or even checking out my Facebook page? Nope. I get a lot done.
I don't even have to go to Outlook or gmail and waste the time seeing if I have mail. I see the badge on the Dock icon, just as with RSS feeds.
Mail has never been one of my favorite apps and Entourage is a joke... I've tried Mail Plane (and others like it), but they don't support many features that I use on a daily basis.
Entourage was many times better than Mail. For one thing, Mail was never good at handling HTML formatted mail, which is how I prefer it.
Safari doesn't have to be "a good email client" - Many web-based email providers have created intuitive, desktop-like applications in the web, which provide 'an excellent client'... To say nothing of the fact I don't need to be sitting at "my" computer to check "my" email. But I digress.
Digress back to my 8 pop accounts and 18 folders and do that in web based mail.
I also check email on my phone, both gmail and two of my pop/imap accounts. But I don't run my business from my phone.
read: "I like to use two apps to do the same functionality as one... and this is what I define as progress."
They don't do the same thing at all. I can watch videos in Safari, but that doesn't make it QuickTime Player or even the DVD player.
I can listen to MP3s in the Finder with QuickLook, and that doesn't make it iTunes. It pays to specialize when it comes to software. One app can not do many things as well as dedicated apps. Having RSS in Safari was very handy. But since I had so many subscriptions, I could not see them all at once, without mousing through menus. Since I don't want to sit here any longer than I need to reading things, or I wouldn't get any actual work done, I can see more information in one place this way. I came to this thread to say "W†F?" too, and to find out what the story was. That changed after I tried some RSS readers. This works better for me.
I agree that if people want to do it in Safari, they shoudl be able to. But as it stands I had to find a new way, and I find this way more enjoyable.
Researches have found that switching context requires a high level of concentration. It can cost up to 15 minutes until the same level of productivity and concentration is achieved, as compared to before switching context. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking)
Reasearch finds all kinds of things. This is out of context. No one is switching contexts, you are reading. Its like reading a book or magazine, you turn pages and look at a photo, or in this box, or back on the page. Or like reading a web site and clicking on a link. Or like reading an email and clicking on a link. Or like reading a post in an RSS reader, and then clicking on a link. It does not matter what window that link opens in. It's a window, and you are looking at the contents of that window, not the app that it belongs to. Many web sites will open a new window or tab. Or they wont and the whole page changes.
This is all the tasks you will do on a computer, and they are not changing context. The context is you are reading at the computer and interacting with it.
Changing context would be more like I'm writing an email, and then I have to go wind a guitar pickup (which is what I do), and then I have to do call my daughter's school.
This means, every time you click out of one program and into another, you are "changing mental gears" -- losing valuable productivity and concentration, something I just can't afford to do.
Absolutely wrong. When you are reading on the Internet, that often curtails clicking on a link to continue the story on another page. Or, you may be reading one page and it references another. So you click there. You did NOT shift mental gears anymore than you would turning the page on a book. Do you get lost turning pages? Me neither. Do you get lost when you click on a link? I didn't think so.
Let's put it this way. Let's see how many gears you shift reading an RSS feed in each program.
In Safari, you might have the link for the RSS feed visible in your bookmarks bar. That's how I did it. Then I could see a number by it. Growl would also give a notification. Now I clicked on that link to see the RSS page. That had the list of articles. To read an article I clicked on its link. That took me off that page onto a new one.
For the links that did not fit in my bookmarks bar (since I have non RSS links in it also), I would click on the continuation of the Bookmarks Bar, and in that drop down, see more RSS feeds that were less frequently updated. But all I would see is a number. Not any informationm about th earticles. I had to open the bookmark for that. So limited info at a glance, and more steps to get there.
Now let's see how it works with something link Vienna. In my menu bar is an icon for Vienna. I see that there are 68 unread articles. Same thing in the Dock. The Vienna window is open when I boot up, so I can see the list of sites and how many new stories each one might have. This is all in one glance, with no mousing to the menus. If I click on a site's subscription I see all the posts. They have the subject lines. If I want to click on one of those I can see the synopsis of the story. If I want to read it I click and it opens in Safari. If I don't want to read it I wasted no time lookig to see what it was. The feed was there without any involvement from me. In Safari you have to click on the feed to view it.
The way I see it there is I can see more info simultaneously and with less effort.
Additionally, Mayer and Moreno have studied the phenomenon of cognitive load in multimedia learning extensively and have concluded that it is difficult, and perhaps impossible to learn new information while engaging in multitasking.
I agree. But no one is multitasking here. I'm doing one task, reading on the computer. I'm not even listening to music or watching TV while I read things on the Internet, or email. If you are reading, you are doing one activity. maybe if you are trying to read two web pages at the same time, and your email. But who would do that?
You are doing all these tasks whether it's all in Safari or in Vienna and Safari. Switching between two apps that both render HTML web pages is not multi tasking. It's switching your attention from one to the other, like from one page in a book or magazine to the next. You just keep reading. maybe you have to go to page 68, and find the column it continues in. You interrupted your story, but you get right back into it.
Just like if you were writing an email, and then the phone rings. Stuff happens.
So again... While I respect the fact that you prefer to do things the hard way, I ask that you stop spouting your opinion as fact -- it's nothing of the sort, and infact flies in the face of several decades worth of scientific research.
Several decades huh? Like back before they had web browsers and RSS feeds? Cool. I think that;s your option, isn't it. because none of those scientific research programs where studying what we are talking about here. Were they?
You can like the way you do it, but don't bring science into it along with confirmation bias. Continuing to read a post or thread on a forum across two pages it the same as continuing between two application windows. Its part of the process or reading. Turn a page. Click a link, in one or two apps. Continue reading. Pretty seamless if you ask me.
For me, the fact that I can see more information in one glance, and can then decide if I want to spend any more time on any of the articles, makes my time more efficient. I couldn't do that in Safari, but I was not aware of that fact until Safari 6.
There, I'm done.
Me too. 😀
