Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!bu.edu!transfer!lectroid!angmar.sw.stratus.com!jmann From: jmann@angmar.sw.stratus.com (Jim Mann) Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms Subject: Re: Windows 3 criticism Message-ID: <2571@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> Date: 3 Oct 90 16:57:20 GMT References: <4297@rex.cs.tulane.edu> <57914@microsoft.UUCP> Sender: usenet@lectroid.sw.stratus.com Reply-To: jmann@angmar.sw.stratus.com (Jim Mann) Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc. Lines: 61 In article , gerry@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes: |> |> |>However, in application programs, menus are usually the fastest way to |>impede productivity. Take FrameMaker for instance. These are things |>I can easily do with TeX that can not be done with FM without a great |>deal of searching, clicking, cursing and using the program in ways |>that the designers did not intend. Are the designers stupid? |>Probably not, but they are incapable of predetermining everyones |>needs, which is why menus are bad. First of all, most things in FrameMaker have keyboard equivalents, so you don't have to use menus much at all. As for your point that using menus is a pain because searching, clicking, etc. is hard: it's a lot easier to remember that Marker is under Frame's special menu than to remember some obscure TeX macro or another. Yes, once you really know TeX well, this isn't a problem, but the same applies to Frame (or Word for Windows, or whatever): once you know which menus to use or which keystrokes do what, it's easy. |>Most people remember most of the commands they use regularly, its not |>too hard. (If you find it difficult, then I wonder about the quality |>of te rest of the folks at MS... maybe that explains some of the |>brain-dead products that MS produces...) Anyway, if I/any person can |>not remember a command, you simply fire up your on-line help system. |>NOw, I am the first to admit that UNIX documentation sucks, but if it |>were rewritten ala VMS then anyone could sit down and start working |>easily. As to you comment about windows being self explanatory that |>is kinda true, but it is also like saying that anyone can get in a car |>and drive, but a jet requires more learning. This is true, but I'd |>rather fly the jet than drive the car. Most people also remember where the menu commands they use most often are, and also know the keystroke equivalents for them. The big win for Windows over the command line is that if I don't know a command (or if I don't know an option for a command) I have an easy, systematic way of figuring out what to do next. |>So, someone from MS finally speaks up, but quite incorrectly. If more |>people could effectively use computers, my job/life would be MUCH |>easier. You see, I am considered to be a guru and am constantly |>being asked questions. I would like to see better user interfaces, |>and MS Windows MAY be a step in that direction, but it must be clearly |>understood by SW manufacturers that they should under no circumstances |>take away the power of the command line interface from those of us who |>want to use them. |> |>(Actually, this conversation reminds me very strongly of gun control |>nuts and the right-to-lifers... two groups who portend to know what's |>best for everyone and will enforce their views regardless.) |> Intersting. Your post came off the same way. Note that you say things like "menus are bad," etc. You are taking your feelings toward Windows and similar GUIs and applying them to everyone. Yet most people prefer menus and would rather not have to deal with the command line. Jim Mann Stratus Computer jmann@es.stratus.com