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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Suggested config guidelines
From:       "Steven D'Aprano" <dippy () mikka ! net ! au>
Date:       2001-05-08 9:42:02
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John Firebaugh wrote:
> 
> Vertical Selection is more of a temporary mode than a setting. Typically,
> you want to enable it for a short while in one document, then disable it.

No, typically YOU want to enable it for a short while in one document.
Joe Listmaker uses it all the time.

See, this is why I'm getting so INCREDIBLY frustrated that I'm amazed
I've controlled my temper so long. All I hear in this discussion is all
the reasons in the world why developers should limit users power. Users
can't do this, its too hard, users can't learn that, its too
complicated. What is this, some sort of conspiracy to cripple GUI
applications so that Real Programmers can look down their noses on
people who use GUIs instead of CLIs?

This is where I'm coming from: computers are tools. People are tool
users. Give them a good tool, and they will learn how to use it. Give
them a lousy tool, and they'll use it in a lousy fashion. Just look at
Windows.

I don't want tools that do half a job. I don't want tools that lock me
in a strait jacket inside a padded cell. I want tools that let me work
in whatever way I want (within reason). Its all well and good to make
things easy for beginners, but beginners don't stay beginners forever.
Do you want KDE to be the system of choice for lusers and no-hopers? Or
do you want KDE to be the system of choice for everyone from my dear old
granny all the way up to Linus himself?

(Well, OK, maybe Linus isn't likely to swap his CL for a GUI app anytime
soon, but you get my point.)

This isn't a pipe dream. Its not impossible. All it takes is a bit of
clever thought, and the attitude that strait jackets are evil. I know
you guys have got the brains. Do you have the attitude?



> The best choice here IMHO would be a toggle-menu item (with shortcut) with
> app-wide effect and visible feedback, rather than any sort of setting in a
> dialog box. Then, changing back and forth is a simple menu selection or
> key-combo, 

Toggle menu items are good. Too many toggle menu items are bad. Can you
image all the settings in, say, Word, converted to toggle menu items?
What a disaster that would be. I'm surprised MS haven't done it :-)

(Actually, take a look at SAP some day, and you'll see what its like to
use an app with over 300 menu items. Count 'em and weep.)

> whereas with temporary settings it involves opening a dialog,
> making the setting change, remembering to click Apply instead of Apply and
> Save, going back to the dialog, remembering what Revert does, remembering
> that now you can use either Apply or Apply and Save.

Do you seriously claim that users can't remember what "Revert" means? I
suppose they can't remember what Save means either, or Open, or Copy,
hell, these users are just so damn dumb that they can't use computers at
all, so why are we bothering with GUIs? Lets all go back to programming
bare metal in binary machine code.


> If it must be a setting in a dialog box, it sounds like the perfect
> candidate for having a vertical selection setting set for Sally's document
> with columns of numbers, and a sensible default of app wide normal
> selection.

Sensible to you. Maybe not to other users.

Guys, the BIGGEST conceit of the programmer is to think that he knows
what the user's needs are better than the user does. I've been around a
lot of different application programs, on three different platforms, and
I use them for 8 or 9 hours a day every day doing actually business
work, not just keeping networks up and creating user accounts. I'll tell
you that there isn't a user alive who doesn't curse some idiot program
for doing something in some stupid way because some programmer decided
that nobody would ever want to do it different.

I have the utmost respect for you fellows and your abilities. I've done
just enough programming to know how difficult it is, so please don't
take this as an insult. But stick to what you know! You are coders, not
mind-readers, and not users. I'm a user, and I work with users, and I
train users, and I tell you this: don't lock them into strait jackets!
They're not as dumb as you think they are. They might be ignorant, but
they're not idiots.



[snip]
> You want Sally and Billy to have to learn and understand the difference
> between "saving" and merely "changing" settings, "current" settings and
> "settings which will be remembered permanantly" - not such simple concepts
> as you make them out to be.

Me to user: "If you click Apply Settings, the changes you make will only
last until you quit. If you want the changes to last forever, click
Apply And Save and the settings will be saved permanently. Understand?"

There, its not so hard, is it? I really can't see why you think such
simple concepts are beyond the ability of users to learn. Accounting
weenies learn how to write Excel macros, secretaries manage to
understand Word style sheets, I work with an 18 year old high-school
drop out who learnt SAP in less than a week of hands-on-training, and I
reckon that half the programmers on this list couldn't do that. I know I
couldn't! So why do you think it is so difficult for users to learn the
difference between "temporary" and "permanent"?

[snip]
> Ok, can you give an example where document settings would not suffice?

You're editing a text file. No document settings, because you can't
store document config info inside the text file.

Or you're editing a binary word processing file, but just this once you
want the spell checker to ignore words in all uppercase.

Or you're listening to mp3s, and you decide to try out a new output
plugin just this once.

The important thing isn't whether or not I can predict what users will
want to do. The important thing is that you can't predict what they
won't ever need to do.
 
[snip]
> > Now, consider your beginner. How often does Sally User, let alone Billy
> > User, change the settings in konq?
> 
> I quite frequently change the view settings -- an analogous action to
> changing document settings (as long as "Save view properties in directory"
> ist set). 

So if you turn "Save view properties" OFF you have temporary settings?
Incredible. Have user's brains exploded from the confusion?

[snip]
> > Think of the nearest analogy to the real world. We Mac users love our RW
> > analogies, right? You have a whole bunch of the four colour pens Bic
> > makes, which you are writting (simultaneously) in different notepads.
> 
> Writing simultaneously on four pads? Impressive! :-)

Maybe you misunderstand the analogy. Here in Australia, Bic makes a pen
that contains four different coloured inks, and you can change the
colour by pressing a button on the pen.

> > If you change the colour of one pen, do all the others change too? No of
> > course they don't.
> 
> But if I switch pads, the pen doesn't magically change color either.

Huh? The pen is the application. The pad is the document.

> The conflict here isn't that I want to prevent you from working your way. I
> appreciate the desire for non-app-wide settings.

Sorry, but I disagree. I have bent over backwards to give you the
ability to make global changes with the click of a button. In return,
what do you offer me? The ability to SAVE document preferences with my
documents. OK, that would be nice. Sometimes. But what about the times I
DON'T want to save the preferences?

Your system works the way you want it to, and nobody else. My system is
flexible enough to work the way you want it to, the way I want it to, or
the way my dear old granny wants it too. More power to the people.

> I think document-settings
> are an adequate solution, and one that is likely to be far less confusing
> and difficult to learn than temporary settings.

You've never used an application with document settings and application
settings have you? Oh boy, I could tell you some stories about
Superpaint... :-(


-- 
Steven D'Aprano

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