On 1999-03-10 09:28, George Bonser wrote:
> Good idea. I think people have gotten lazy when it comes to computers. If
> what they are doing is not immediately obvious then somehow they think the
> program is broken.
An obvious user interface is often said to be "user friendly".
Personally, I don't think there is anything magically good in a
complicated (or non-obvious) user interface unless it allows me to
accomplish a task faster (give or take a little training):
Say, I want to edit a (well-behave) subset of files:
vi *some_subset*.txt
Nothing is faster. It could be a pita to do with something like mc,
either select each of them or ask some filter to select things then
edit (in good old nc days, one could not run a command on selected
files).
Suppose, I want to edit some irregular pattern though, it would be
much easier to:
interactive_file_select | vi
> The current mindset is that if you have to read instructions, it is
> too complicated. They are willing to sacrifice fine-grained control
> for simplicity. All one has to do is READ the directions and dselect
> becomes very easy to use ... but that is the part they all skip.
Most UNIX programs don't have interactive or context sensitive help,
which IMHO is a good thing - unless it takes 10s to appear. I think
it's kinda primitive that one has to have
lynx /usr/doc/xntpdno_man_page_available/readme.html
then search for some label which is listed a
zillion times in 73 different html files.
or
grep -i sb /usr/src/linux/Documentation/sound/|xargs less
in order to figure out how I get my sound blaster to make
noise.
I don't think your average user will like this any time soon - and
that's why they are still using Windows.
/Allan
--
Allan M. Wind Phone: 781.938.5272 (home)
687 Main St., 2nd fl. Fax: 781.938.6641 (fax/modem)
Woburn, MA 01801 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (home)
