Re: [linux-audio-user] Opening up the discussion

Lee Revell wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 12:47 -0700, eviltwin69@email-addr-hidden wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:34 , Lee Revell <rlrevell@email-addr-hidden-job.com> sent:
>>
>>
>>>On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 10:46 +0200, Mario Lang wrote:
>>>
>>>>That is the point, I absolutely dont feel reading up on something
>>>>is necessarily a bad thing. My hair stand up if I watch
>>>>a typical no-clue windows user more or less randomly hitting
>>>>buttons in the interface until "something" works. I do feel this
>>>>"it has to work out of the box without me having to know anything
>>>>about it" attitude is childish.
>>>>
>>>
>>>I disagree violently with this line of reasoning. Software should
>>>ALWAYS work the way the user expects it to unless there is a DAMN GOOD
>>>REASON, for example if you are offering a much more powerful interface
>>>than the user is used to.
>>>
>>>For example, most apps (Firefox and IE) use "Ctrl-F" to 'Find in page'.
>>>Except Evolution, which forces you to use "Ctrl-S" to 'Find (Search) in
>>>page', because they have already bound Ctrl-F to 'Forward message'.
>>
>>
>> Ah, but Ctrl-S has been search in all versions of Emacs for the last couple
>>of decades. I think that predates IE and Firefox. They must not have felt like
>>doing it in the normal way ;-) And you don't need to point out that Emacs isn't
>>a browser since Evolution isn't one either.
>>
>
>
> Correct, but I'm talking about the modern UNIX GUI desktop, the one that
> we expect to be intuitive to Mac and Windows users. You know, KDE or
> Gnome, Firefox, OpenOffice, Evolution or kmail. The type of stuff that
> will meet the needs of 99% of computer users (yes we all know we are in
> the other 1%). For better or for worse, Emacs is not a part of that.
>

too true ... i've gotten the idea from this thread that emacs is a
really powerful editor, that can do many a thing ... however, i'm too
busy figuring out how to install/configure programs to actually learn
how to use it. i mean, there should be *some* parts of linux that are
"plug-n-play" ... especially a text editor!!!!

now, if you've been using linux for years and years, chances are that
you will be an expert in emacs ... however, a huge majority of people
are coming to linux only *now* - after the establishment of the will to
usability on the linux desktop with KDE, GNOME etc. so, with a graphical
environment that is now *very* similar on first glance to windows, *a
lot* of new users will expect that the applications they want to use
will "just work". there is nothing wrong with this, indeed it is the
sort of expectation that is currently being pushed in the wider community.

shayne
Received on Tue Jul 26 04:15:11 2005