The user wants to use his computer how he wants to; to install applications and enhancements- all to improve his use of the computer.

The developer or administrator wants to set up the computer how he would like it, to make it easier for him to troubleshoot and solve problems. He wants to eliminate things that make it difficult.

So who is right? I’m going to side with the user. He is the one paying the bills or at least is why the developer/administrator has a job. Without the user, and his computer, the developer or administrator would be useless. So the user gets to do what he wants, and the developer or administrator will just have to deal. There are other, worse, jobs out there, you know.

And this makes it really frustrating to hear the attitude coming from the developers and administrators. If I’m paying for your software, because I find it useful and worthy of my money, then you damn well better support it, regardless of what else I have on my computer. I don’t want to hear that haxies are “buggy,” I shouldn’t have them installed, and/or that you don’t have the time to support fixing my problem. I paid you money, and if you want any more of my money, you’d better fix the problem.

Now if the problem isn’t yours, I still expect you to help me get it fixed. Work with the haxie developer. Its called customer satisfaction. It goes a long way to getting and keeping a loyal customer. They will recommend your product to others if you help them out, even if its not your problem. Insulting the customer is not the way to do that.

I’ve been running FruitMenu(cause its much more efficient and space saving than the Dock), Demetalfilizer(because I hate brushed metal), and Disunity(because I hate the unified toolbar) for as long as they have been out, and I’ve never had a problem with a third party app. No developer is going to tell me I can’t run them, at least if they want me to use their product. This is a major reason why I don’t use and of BareBones’ software.

And I still think that, if Default Folder and Spell Catcher are classified and treated as haxies, then there is something seriously wrong. These are two incredibly valuable and useful tools. I suppose the only hope here would be that Apple would finally purchase these two tools and integrate them into Mac OS X itself.

One can always dream…

Because that’s just what input managers do. And what they are supposed to do. They are designed to plug into applications to improve the user experience. Of course you can to this with varying extents and it’s hard to say where people should stop. But at the end of the day you can hook about any code into other applications using Input Managers.