Re: Great SWT Program

In article <b28b30ff-af05-4d21-a814-1e4f1481ab37@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
<nebulous99@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Dec 15, 12:45 pm, blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blm...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

[ snip ]

In saying that "termcap" and "terminfo" can't describe
everything your imagination can concoct, including things (such
as non-rectangular windows) that -- well, *can* typical window
managers deal with those?

Sure can. Ever seen Windows with a circular clock app running? (I
expect the software regards the window as square, but possessed of a
mask channel, in the underlying implementation. And of course it is
mostly used for subtler things, like a window with slightly rounded
corners, and mostly for aesthetic rather than functional reasons.) And
I've certainly seen proportional fonts in a GUI.

My point stands that it's a bit silly to criticize termcap/terminfo
for not being able to do something they were never intended for.

[ snip ]

If I ever need to use multiple workspaces I'll just fish around in the
menus for how to switch among them.

Here in GUI-land we don't need to be terrified of not being able to
find out how to do something or how to change something back, as it
isn't usually a slog through a 450-page monolithic wad of help
summoned forth by an unknown key binding and substring-searched with
another such, which search tool by the way behaves strangely, doesn't
recognize the arrow keys for query-editing, and the like, all while
not knowing a good query to use that's narrow enough to have few false
positives while being broad enough to definitely hit the intended
target at the same time. Even when there is occasion to resort to
documentation, it's a menu item or F1 keypress away, and it's
organized into many individual cross-linked short documents instead of
one monstrously long one, not to mention bundled with a search that
Just Works(tm) without any fiddliness, guesswork, or having to read
the manual halfway through to reach the bit explaining how to search
the manual. ;)

I've left this whole rant in here because what you say about *my*
platform of choice is so close to how I feel about *your* platform
of choice:

In GUI-land I am indeed a bit apprehensive about making many kinds
of changes, far more so than on a platform where configurations are
modified by editing text files, and it's utterly straightforward to
save a copy of the old configuration and restore if it something
goes wrong.

And my experience with typical GUI tools' documentation is that
sometimes it's wonderful, and sometimes it's not -- just like
old-style Unix documentation, with the biggest difference being
that one is oriented toward novices and the other toward experts.

--
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.
.

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