Up till now, I've avoided joining in to the chorus of rants, and
have been content to simply continue using the old classic servers.
But this morning, to my dismay, I find that they have all been
done away with, leaving only new classic and non-classic servers.
Somebody at Datek must be a big fan of Beavis and Butt-head, but
especially Beavis. I remember not very long ago being reassured
that the classic servers would remain. The implication was that
the old classic servers would remain indefinitely, since
when that assurance was first given, there was no new classic.
This turns out to have been a lie.
Beavis: "Yeah, yeah, heh-heh lyin's cool..."
The new classic may have a better "back end" than the old classic
but the user interface is UGLY and HARDER TO READ.
Perhaps beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm not a teenager
wearing grunge clothes, pants 20 sizes too big, a nose ring, with
a Billy Idol buzz cut. Just a 40-something Levi's and sweatshirt
wearing, Coke-guzzling software engineer without the gen-x
aesthetic that ugly is beautiful. I like clean lines, symmetry,
and simplicity.
(1) I cannot use the new interface at all. Period. Black on black
menus. I can't get a new browser either. I'm one of the few
people using a SPARCstation 10 running Solaris 2.3, and only
Netscape 3.0 is available. Netscape 4.0 is supported only for
Solaris 2.4 and higher. Don't tell me that I have to buy a new
workstation, new operating system, and new browser, just to
get your pages to work.
(2) There is an enormous amount of space wasted around the buttons
and entry forms on the new classic orders page. The hideous
green border is bigger than the labels and entry windows,
making the whole affair take 2x the vertical space necessary.
(3) The fonts have been made smaller, and therefore harder to
read. If this were to save space, it might be acceptable,
but any space saved was wasted (see above). Personally, I'd
rather have the old slightly larger font. If I want to fit
more on my screen, I can edit the font options in Netscape.
(4) The lack of cell borders and the poor alignment of the text
in the quotes, makes them harder to scan.
Why can't you at leave at least one of the original servers with
the original interface? If it is overloaded with users, then that
is a message to you. Datek has essentially issued an ultimatum to
its customers - new classic: take it or leave. Ultimatums are
almost always a bad idea. This isn't the army. We're customers. |
