Re: [LAU] Audio distros

On 02/18/2013 10:00 PM, Simon Wise wrote:
> On 18/02/13 10:51, david wrote:
>
>> One thing I noticed just a few days ago while updating my wife's
>> netbook (it
>> runs Ubuntu 12.04LTS). I mistyped a CLI command, and Ubuntu obligingly
>> came up
>> with a list of suggestions for what I was looking for.
>
> yes ... that kind of search if there is an error is nice ... what
> shell/terminal is that? anything using readline under the covers gives
> tab-completion ... not quite that but it can still save a lot of typing,
> and avoid some typos to.

It's whatever shell Ubuntu 12.04 uses with XFCE.

It's the first thing I've liked about Ubuntu, but not enough to use
Ubuntu on my own machines.

>> Oh, I do business using words. And graphics. And sound. But
>> remembering specific
>> words to the degree of detail needed by many command line apps (how
>> many people
>> even remember all of mplayer's command line options, let alone their
>> suboptions?) Especially when it's not something I do that often.
>
> Certainly big, very flexible programs have big, complicated manpages
> with lots of options. Here an interface or a script offering only the
> few common use-cases is much easier to use if you don't need the whole
> program, hence the many mplayer front ends to choose from.

I use mplayer a lot for command line media play. Have used it to extract
audio from videos. Easy to type!

I think it tried one or 2 GUIs for it and found them not useful.

> I personally find trying to work out how to use a big, very flexible
> menu and tab interface (like VLC's for example) much more annoying than
> finding the options in a manpage.

I don't. (Haven't looked at VLC.) A well-organized GUI guides the user
to the needed option.

> Then if the task is something I'll do
> again I'll add another line to a text file on the subject,

Yah, then gotta find that text file ...

> or perhaps
> save a one-line script,

Then gotta find that one-line script ...

> or even put in my desktop panel or keyboard
> shortcuts if it is a task I repeat a lot.

That's a good point about scripts.

> For me its easier to keep a
> line of text on file

and remember which file contains that line of text ...

> than remember a whole swag of settings nested in
> tabs and menus, but everyone works differently.

I could do both if needed. I've even memorized the basic command line
needed to FSCK my hard drives. But for quite a number of years now, I
haven't had to remember a whole swag of settings et al for most things I
do. Even Linux GUI designers are learning!

To date myself: I used to use Microsoft Word 1.0 for DOS. Any guesses as
to what menu it used to save a file?

-- 
David
gnome@email-addr-hidden
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/
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