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Rob Relyea - XAMLified

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*chirp – from thirteen23.com

I’m not an active twitterer, but I created an account several months ago.  Just saw a pointer to thirteen23.com’s *chirp app, installed it.

It is such a nice app that it makes me want to twitter.

Published Wednesday, January 28, 2009 7:24 AM by Rob_Relyea
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Comments

# re: *chirp – from thirteen23.com@ Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:26 PM

Nice visuals, lousy UX.  Lack of a scrollbar, lack of keyboard support for most everything, lack of shell icon support, lack of resizing capabilities... one can go on and on.  It's one tremendously nice looking application, that's simply not usable. :(

by wekempf

# re: *chirp – from thirteen23.com@ Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:40 PM

Ok, yes...as I have used it more...I've realized those things too.

I don't mind the scrollbar missing.  Keyboard...I want home!  Resize also!

Yes, I got caught up in a few of its very nice polished visuals.

WOuld be nice if a test app could test these kind of things...for all apps and help steer a team towards no gaps...

by Rob_Relyea

# re: *chirp – from thirteen23.com@ Thursday, January 29, 2009 4:54 PM

The missing scrollbar is a deal breaker, AFAIC. Without it:

* there's no visual indication of where you're at in the list

* there's no way to use the mouse to scroll if you don't have a wheel mouse

Given that we don't have keyboard support for scrolling, this leaves many folks with absolutely no way to scroll!  There's a reason UX designers must understand usability more than they should be good at visual design.

I want to like *chirp.  Really, I do.  It's one of the most stunning applications I've seen.  They need a second release, ASAP, that actually makes the application usable.

by wekempf

# re: *chirp – from thirteen23.com@ Friday, January 30, 2009 6:33 PM

* chirp scrolls backwards to infinity. even with a scroll bar the indicator could never be accurate.

* without a wheel you can still scroll. just click anywhere and drag up/down.

* scroll back to the top by clicking the Home icon. (which incidentally looks like an up arrow)

by derek

# re: *chirp – from thirteen23.com@ Tuesday, February 10, 2009 9:17 AM

i just wanted to say that derek's got it right, the program is very functional while still remaining visually impressive. a great designer finds a way to infuse utility with the art and they have accomplished that here. a resize function would be nice, but the size is perfect as it is and i wouldn't recommend someone resizing it unless it is absolutely necessary. maybe they could throw in a couple keyboard shortcuts for our friend with no wheel mouse, but other than that i just want to see more from these guys.  

by dirk

# Hanselminutes: WPF App, WPF Component, Silverlight@ Friday, February 13, 2009 7:39 AM

Scott Hanselman ’s podcast contains 3 WPF/Silverlight related podcasts as of late: Deconstructing “blu

by Rob Relyea - XAMLified

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