From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" Message-ID: <3B7AD02B.6281DDB7@null.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <20010814122734.A24734@cackle.proxima.alt.za>, , <3B793F22.5080707@xs4all.nl> Subject: Re: [9fans] User Interface Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 08:28:06 +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: de5f7bc4-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 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.