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On 11/19/09 10:33, Darren New wrote:
>> Sometimes you get a help page for the whole dialog box, containing
>> such gems as "Use SCSI encapsulation - Turn this on if you want to use
>> SCSI command encapsulation". Well, gee, now it all makes sense!
>
> That means one of two things:
> 1) If you don't know what SCSI encapsulation is, don't touch this.
Yes, but why bother putting it in the help file, if you're not going to
provide help for it?
--
I didn't know my husband drank until one day he came home sober.
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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 11/19/09 10:33, Darren New wrote:
>>> Sometimes you get a help page for the whole dialog box, containing
>>> such gems as "Use SCSI encapsulation - Turn this on if you want to use
>>> SCSI command encapsulation". Well, gee, now it all makes sense!
>>
>> That means one of two things:
>> 1) If you don't know what SCSI encapsulation is, don't touch this.
>
> Yes, but why bother putting it in the help file, if you're not going
> to provide help for it?
Because some corporate person made the rule that every option has to have a
help file entry?
The other mechanism is to say "it's in the registry, but we don't support
it", but then you get people complaining about it. "Turns on SCSI
encapsulation" is a perfectly good description if you know what it means. If
you don't know what it means, a tool tip is probably not the right place to
learn it.
It's like trying to explain anything technical in enough detail that an
uneducated user will understand. How do you explain "clear authenticated
sessions" in the firefox "clear private data" dialog without explaining how
SSL works and why you'd have to carry around session authentications between
sessions? To someone who isn't sure what the difference between the
internet and email is?
How do you explain what an IRQ conflict is or a DMA range to someone who is
still a bit confused by the difference between the monitor and the computer?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams?
Then he is malevolent.
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>> But the critical question is... Can you configure them all from the GUI?
>> Or do you have to edit some 25-mile text file?
>
> No more often than Windows settings need to be tweaked in the registry
> these days, in my experience.
Generally, you only need to tweak the registry for very obscure settings
that almost nobody will ever need to touch.
Unix software, on the other hand, seems to regard giant text files (all
with a completely different format) as the *primary* means of
configuration, and a GUI as secondary to that.
Windows software tends to regard the GUI as the primary way to
configure. And if there isn't a button for it, it's probably just not
editable at all.
And look at Mozilla Firefox. There's an options box, but there are
seemingly millions of extra config entries that aren't listed there.
(They do at least provide a reasonable UI for editing these...)
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Invisible wrote:
> Unix software, on the other hand, seems to regard giant text files (all
> with a completely different format) as the *primary* means of
> configuration, and a GUI as secondary to that.
That's because Unix doesn't have a registry. Hence, every program implements
its own configurations subsystem, and hence it's difficult to write a GUI
that understands the configuration subsystem of every program. If you do,
it's difficult to continue to update it in step with releases of the program
that break the syntax of the configuration files or add new options that
people want to use.
> Windows software tends to regard the GUI as the primary way to
> configure. And if there isn't a button for it, it's probably just not
> editable at all.
Not quite true. It's just not supported if there's no button. There's all
kinds of things you can tweak but only if you know what you're doing.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams?
Then he is malevolent.
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>> Unix software, on the other hand, seems to regard giant text files
>> (all with a completely different format) as the *primary* means of
>> configuration, and a GUI as secondary to that.
>
> That's because Unix doesn't have a registry. Hence, every program
> implements its own configurations subsystem.
The registry is actually one of the few nice ideas in Windows, IMHO.
>> Windows software tends to regard the GUI as the primary way to
>> configure. And if there isn't a button for it, it's probably just not
>> editable at all.
>
> Not quite true. It's just not supported if there's no button. There's
> all kinds of things you can tweak but only if you know what you're doing.
IME, most of the stuff you have to manually tweak the registry for is
compatibility settings or obscure configuration that only a system
administrator for a large company would care about. There aren't too
many email programs that have an option to automatically spellcheck
before sending, but you can _only_ turn this on through the registry.
For example.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Not quite true. It's just not supported if there's no button. There's
>> all kinds of things you can tweak but only if you know what you're doing.
>
> IME, most of the stuff you have to manually tweak the registry for is
> compatibility settings or obscure configuration that only a system
> administrator for a large company would care about.
Right. Basically, a lot of the stuff targetted at people who can read a KB
article and understand what it's saying and not screw up the registry while
editting it.
Essentially, in MS, there are multiple levels of configuration. Tweak the
registry is the first. Run a command-line program that sets the options is
second (because then you have to support it). A GUI is third (because then
you need help messages, translating into dozens of languages, etc.)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams?
Then he is malevolent.
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On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:58:08 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>> But the critical question is... Can you configure them all from the
>>> GUI? Or do you have to edit some 25-mile text file?
>>
>> No more often than Windows settings need to be tweaked in the registry
>> these days, in my experience.
>
> Generally, you only need to tweak the registry for very obscure settings
> that almost nobody will ever need to touch.
I find that to be the same on my GNOME desktop systems.
> Unix software, on the other hand, seems to regard giant text files (all
> with a completely different format) as the *primary* means of
> configuration, and a GUI as secondary to that.
Let me introduce you to YaST....Before I started using it, I didn't like
the idea of it, but now that I'm used to it, guess what - I don't have to
tweak all these different configuration files, because it handles it for
me most of the time.
> Windows software tends to regard the GUI as the primary way to
> configure. And if there isn't a button for it, it's probably just not
> editable at all.
It's editable if you know how.
> And look at Mozilla Firefox. There's an options box, but there are
> seemingly millions of extra config entries that aren't listed there.
> (They do at least provide a reasonable UI for editing these...)
Yeah, that's what about:config is for....
Jim
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>> Unix software, on the other hand, seems to regard giant text files (all
>> with a completely different format) as the *primary* means of
>> configuration, and a GUI as secondary to that.
>
> Let me introduce you to YaST....Before I started using it, I didn't like
> the idea of it, but now that I'm used to it, guess what - I don't have to
> tweak all these different configuration files, because it handles it for
> me most of the time.
The problem is, Unix has _always_ been designed around the idea that
everything is a text file and that's how you configure the entire
system. Sure, these days we have pretty front ends that atempt to hide
all the complexity. But as soon as you need to edit something there
isn't a front-end for, or the text file contains some setting that the
fancy front-end doesn't comprehend... suddenly you need to know how all
this stuff works again.
Windows, on the other hand, has always been designed around the idea
that the user doesn't know anything about computers and needs to be
shielded from anything more complicated than a lightswitch. Which is
sometimes quite frustrating, in a different way...
I think XKCD sums it up nicely:
http://www.xkcd.com/619/
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On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:30:43 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>> Unix software, on the other hand, seems to regard giant text files
>>> (all with a completely different format) as the *primary* means of
>>> configuration, and a GUI as secondary to that.
>>
>> Let me introduce you to YaST....Before I started using it, I didn't
>> like the idea of it, but now that I'm used to it, guess what - I don't
>> have to tweak all these different configuration files, because it
>> handles it for me most of the time.
>
> The problem is, Unix has _always_ been designed around the idea that
> everything is a text file and that's how you configure the entire
> system. Sure, these days we have pretty front ends that atempt to hide
> all the complexity. But as soon as you need to edit something there
> isn't a front-end for, or the text file contains some setting that the
> fancy front-end doesn't comprehend... suddenly you need to know how all
> this stuff works again.
Allow me (again) to introduce you to YaST, or Webmin. I've found very
little that these two frontends won't configure properly.
> Windows, on the other hand, has always been designed around the idea
> that the user doesn't know anything about computers and needs to be
> shielded from anything more complicated than a lightswitch. Which is
> sometimes quite frustrating, in a different way...
And again, allow me to introduce you to YaST and Webmin.... ;-)
> I think XKCD sums it up nicely:
>
> http://www.xkcd.com/619/
Full-screen flash video support has been around for a while.
Jim
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Invisible escreveu:
> The problem is, Unix has _always_ been designed around the idea that
> everything is a text file and that's how you configure the entire
> system. Sure, these days we have pretty front ends that atempt to hide
> all the complexity. But as soon as you need to edit something there
> isn't a front-end for, or the text file contains some setting that the
> fancy front-end doesn't comprehend... suddenly you need to know how all
> this stuff works again.
>
> Windows, on the other hand, has always been designed around the idea
> that the user doesn't know anything about computers and needs to be
> shielded from anything more complicated than a lightswitch. Which is
> sometimes quite frustrating, in a different way...
What that really means is that there are GUIs for all the n00b-level
options and if there isn't, the Windows n00b will have to mess around
with the arcane registry or RTFM for the first time in his life.
I like configuration files better than GUIs for no other reason that I
can simply grep it for whatever I'm looking for or remotely related --
direct to the point. In GUIs I have to go through a multitude of
recursive menus or tabs hidden well underneath other options etc...
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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