Re: Great SWT Program

On Nov 3, 6:30 pm, blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I said the / prompt comes up blank. Is this or is this not true?

It's true -- and I said so in a previous post.

I rest that bit of my case then.

Ah. I keep forgetting that for you the only functionality that
counts is what someone who only knows the Windows conventions can
easily discover, without reading any documentation. That seems
kind of limiting to me, but -- whatever.

Not "without reading any documentation", but only what documentation
is readily accessible. "Readily accessible" means easy to find and
browse. If it's unobvious how to search the documentation, for
instance, then only what jumps out at you from the first part of it
likely counts. Also, something it wouldn't occur to people to search
for. If there's no hint in the UI that given functionality exists, are
they likely to go hunting through the docs finding if it's mentioned
anywhere on the off chance that it is? I mostly consult documentation
either a) as a reference for functionality I already know exists and
that is complicated to use or b) to try to find functionality that I
suspect exists for whatever reason, either because the UI hints in
some way that it does, or because it's industry standard functionality
to include in that kind of app, or whatever. If some prompt shows no
indications whatsoever that it has a command history, and it's not
unusual for such prompts not to have one, then it's unlikely I'd
search the documentation for "command history" even if I could find
and use the documentation-search feature, simply on the off chance
that this particular prompt does have a command history.

I find it interesting how often people respond to my not having known
something with a suggestion that I should have googled or RTFM'd in
situations where it simply does not make sense for someone to do so.
For example, a common practise has been announced as deprecated with
sufficient lack of fanfare for me not to have heard. I mention the
practise, and people blow up at me. They claim that I should have
googled every time I mentioned this (and, by extension, any *other*
practise!) but there's no logical reason for me to. If a particular
practise is well known one will simply use it without much thought.
Why would it occur to anyone that on this *particular* occasion maybe
something has changed and there's been some sort of announcement
somewhere? As I recall what they wanted me to have found was a blog
posting on some obscure blog I don't follow routinely. There was never
any mention of this blog anywhere as a required-reading announcements
list, either. Basically the only way someone could find this thing is
in one of four circumstances ranging from unlikely to ludicrous: a)
they're paranoid that the rules have changed every time they do
anything, so every time they do anything no matter how commonplace
they google it to see if there's just been an announcement that it's
just been discovered to be linked to cancer or some such ***; b)
they're psychic and whereas they do this thing often without ill
effects, on the 364th occasion it suddenly pops into their head -- a
strange feeling that something's different or wrong -- so they do a
google search; c) they happen to follow this particular blog; or d)
they simply stumble onto it entirely by accident at approximately the
right time to see the announcement in question.

This same reasoning likewise applies to finding new and unobvious
functionality via the documentation: either a) it has to occur to
someone that that particular functionality might exist, and then they
do a search despite the high likelihood of a negative result in any
given instance; b) they have to psychically know what functionality
exists and what doesn't despite a lack of evidence and then search
only for desired functionality that they actually will genuinely find;
c) they have to read the whole damn documentation from cover to cover;
or d) they have to just stumble onto it by chance when some other
circumstance leads them to an adjacent section of the documentation.

Useful information. Thank you. Autocomplete -- I'm guessing
this is more of that "here, let me help you!" behavior I find so
irritating in "modern" tools. (I prefer that the program only
help me when I ask it to.) But presumably one gets used to it.

The usual implementation is for it to extend what you've typed so far
into a guess, but the extension is selected so if you keep typing it
doesn't behave incorrectly. Search for "leopard" and then "leap" in a
typical example app and when you type the "l" you get
"l[eopard]" (with [] denoting a selection highlight rather than
literal brackets); typing the "e" replaces "eopard" and it still
matches the word "leopard" in the search history so you have
"le[opard]"; the "a" replaces "opard" and gives just "lea"; and then
the "p" completes "leap" and you hit enter. But if you want "leopard",
and you notice it's filled in that word after you've hit the "l" or
the "le", you can just hit enter to launch the search.

Others don't change the contents of the text field at all and instead
drop down a list of matches from recent searches or even from a
dictionary, often front-loading recent searches and putting additional
matches from the dictionary below those. You can ignore it or you can
arrow down and hit enter to select one (or use the mouse), then either
edit it or just hit enter to submit it as-is.

Likewise if it fills in "le[opard]" and you want the plural you can
just hit end and "s" to make "leopards" and then submit the query.

In most cases it's well designed so that it does not get in the way of
simply typing a query and hitting enter, while still providing other
options, and making those options plainly visible to the user if they
are paying attention to the UI. I can't remember the last time I had
the equivalent of going to type "leap" and ending up with "leopardap"
instead because of a poorly-implemented autocomplete in a text field.
It's certainly been years. If that ever does happen it's a legitimate
reason to submit a bug report IMO.

Explorer's search

Is that the one with the cute animated character? Don't get me
started ....

The puppy? I dragged that out back and shot it years ago. Of course
every new computer with Windoze XP requires me to do it again. I
shudder to think of what Vista has in its place. Fortunately it's easy
to disable it and have a plain-jane search pane to work with.

But the fact that it exists at all -- well, okay, maybe this
whole system *is* a toy, or a joke, or meant mainly to entertain.

It's meant to appeal to a wide range of users. The puppy will
entertain kids, and meanwhile anyone who doesn't want it can get rid
of it and get to serious work quickly; and it stays gone, even through
reboots, until specifically invited back. (I don't, however,
personally know of anyone who's ever actually done so. Invited it
back, that is. :))

XP with the default theme and other defaults, such as the puppy still
enabled, does seem geared to children, probably to help get them
started with computing. (And, of course, to try to addict them to MS
software early, I expect.) Needless to say the first things I do with
a fresh XP box include changing the theme to "classic" (which
resembles Windows 95, and makes more efficient use of screen real-
estate as well as not being an eyesore) and shooting the search puppy,
not to mention installing the "power toys", setting the calculator to
scientific mode (which persists as well), likewise configuring task
manager and one or two other things, killing a bunch of unneeded
services and startup items, and diddling explorer to not hide any
files or directories from me. After that come the downloads and
installs: ZoneAlarm, Firefox (and I make it the default browser),
Thunderbird (and I make it the default mail client), Spybot S&D, Ad-
Aware, Winamp ...

.