Re: [9fans] User Interface

["Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@null.net>]

Eric de Redelijkheid wrote:
> >       disk/kfscmd halt
> >       Ctl+Alt+Del
> >       (switch it off)
> This procedure is absurd. What is wrong with a command like ' shutdown'.

All you have to do is put "disk/kfscmd halt" into an rc file "shutdown".
Mine is called "halt", which is about as much an improvement to your
suggestion as your suggestion is to the "hard way".

> Why not a button for a system shutdown?

Why should there be one?  That leads to a myriad of buttons for all
sorts of trivial things, which is *not* good user interface design.

> Or a whole sentence: ' please, shutdown the system for power down'.

"Open the pod bay doors, Hal."

"I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave.  You didn't say 'please'."

> What is a snarf? Should an ordinairy user like me concern myself with
> words I can't find in the dictionary (if it is a word in a dictionary, I
> have a very cheap one). The fact that it is made by the same people as
> UNIX tells you nothing about interface design. The existence the old
> style man pages are an indication.

UNIX-style man pages, properly used, are a very effective means of
organizing and presenting usage information.

> ... I can not work with sam or acme. In linux, I can hardly work with vi;
> ... I refuse to work with emacs.

Then please go away.  Plan 9, like UNIX, is for tool users, not
barbarians.

> Instinctively I click (left button) this cross, ...

Read the instructions.
There is *no* window manager in general use that is "intuitive"; if
you think there is, it's only because it is similar to some other WM
with which you already have some familiarity.

> Without a good and simple easy to use user interface, plan 9 will never
> be adopted. And the whole effort would have been a pointless exercise.

Adopted by whom?  You don't seem to understand the point of the
exercise.