Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!notecnirp!nfs
From: nfs@notecnirp.Princeton.EDU (Norbert Schlenker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: World's best word processor
Message-ID: <17571@princeton.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 8 Jun 89 13:14:02 GMT
References: <353@hal.UUCP> <8619@chinet.chi.il.us> <554@rb-dc1.UUCP>
Sender: news@princeton.Princeton.EDU
Reply-To: nfs@notecnirp.UUCP (Norbert Schlenker)
Distribution: na
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Princeton University
Lines: 31

In article <554@rb-dc1.UUCP> shapiro@rb-dc1.SanDiego.gould.UUCP (Michael Shapiro) writes:
>In article <8619@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie
>Mikesell) writes (regarding WordPerfect):
>>The key mapping is certainly non-intuitive, but you really only have to
>>remember that F3 is the help key.
>               ^^
>This points out one of the problems with the non-intuitive product
>design.  While not a standard, a quite common convention of PC
>software is the use of F1 as the help key.  I'd really be interested
>in knowing why the designer (or design team) of WP chose to go with an
>arbitrarily different selection.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Well, I think they just march to the beat of a different drummer in Orem.
If you make the number one product on the market, who cares whether you're
compatible with the rest of the world?  If you make the number one product,
why shouldn't everyone else be compatible with YOU?

>
>-- 
>Michael Shapiro, Encore Computer Corporation (formerly Gould/GSD)
>15378 Avenue of Science, San Diego, CA 92128
>(619)485-0910    UUCP: shapiro@rb-dc1  
>(This location will close, starting July 10.  I will be moving on.)

Seriously though, the keyboard is arbitrarily remappable within WordPerfect.
If you don't like F3 as help, change it.  I believe that enough people have
complained about it that there is a command line option on invocation that
does the logical thing of moving help onto F1 and cancel onto ESC.  I don't
use it, because they've brainwashed me!

Norbert