From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu From: Eric de Redelijkheid Message-ID: <3B7835D4.2050908@xs4all.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: [9fans] User Interface Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 09:46:06 +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: dac347f2-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 I recently heard about plan9 when I was just browsing the Internet=20 looking for some UNIX-related documents. I saw it was possible to download a copy and since I have an IBM=20 Thinkpad 390E which I don't really use anymore, I installed it. The=20 installation was very simple; that gave me good hopes about general use. I trust that the concepts were well concidered when designing this=20 operating system, however I have never seen a more awkward user=20 interface since twm. The editors, sam and acme are virtually unusable.=20 Why is it that such a simple task as editing the contents of a textfile=20 must cause so much pain? At least some of you must have seen notepad.exe=20 at work during your lifetime? It can=B4t do much, but it gets the job don= e=20 in a simple way! Why is there not just one single command to create a new user, but do I=20 need first to make the file /adm/users writable, edit this file (with=20 more luck then wisdom), and type in at least three different commands.=20 When I log on with the new username, I have to give another command to=20 get the computer to present me a graphical user environment; which is a=20 grey screen. I don't know for whom the designers created this operating system, but I=20 hope that they had human beings in mind. In my opinion every task performed on a computer: - installation - administration - general use (word processing, spreadsheet, mail etc..) - programming should be done with the aid of a simple, intuitive, point- and- click,=20 graphical user interface. btw: is there a shutdown command or do I just switch my laptop of?