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Their example is a bit juvenile. Even so, keep in mind that it is a one-line ifconfig invocation for those that understand the terminal and know about ifconfig,

by m0th87 17y ago

Their example is a bit juvenile. Even so, keep in mind that it is a one-line ifconfig invocation for those that understand the terminal and know about ifconfig, which does not hold for the vast majority of users. This is about making automation more usable. I'm not sure if it is a productive one because my perspective is adulterated by technical knowledge. But at the very least, it is a very interested approach which could prove fruitful for your average user.

ugh 17y ago
I’m not quite average but certainly closer to average than most here on HN, so let me just say that I found this immediately intuitive. I wanted to try it. It’s a Rube Goldberg machine, but playing with those is always fun and intuitive. (By the way, that was all very explicit and non-automatic, would it be possible to do this in some way where you just hit record and then click your way through? You would just have to snap screenshots whenever the user is clicking. Might be a problem with things that change their appearance on mouse-over like drop down menus, but I guess that’s solvable.)
mquander 17y ago
Sure, but there's also a precondition for using this: you have to understand that it's actually even possible to automate repetitive tasks on a computer, and have the motivation to do so. Hell, I know programmers who don't do that. How many people fit that description, but will still find this easier than ifconfig? My guess is few. That said, I think this is a neat hack.
- m0th87 17y ago
  I think its usefulness (or lack thereof) can't accurately be critiqued by anecdotes from technical users, but rather needs to be quantified through usability testing. It's easy to blow this idea off, but the "solve something your users didn't know needed to be solved" advice I occasionally see on HN keeps echoing in my head.
thwarted 17y ago
it is a one-line ifconfig invocation for those that understand the terminal and know about ifconfig, which does not hold for the vast majority of users I know people who are just as much afraid of the terminal as they are of the network settings. And stepping someone through opening the terminal and typing something is approximately the same number of actions (in clicks and keystrokes) as navigating to the settings panel and typing in the info. And while I agree that the example of modifying the network settings is contrived and thus not a good example of the usefulness of this setup, the difference between modifying network settings via the system settings GUI and from the terminal with ifconfig is that one will be remembered after a reboot and one will not be despite both having similar surface complexity to change. This is mainly because the actual settings are buried in some obscure, OSX specific file somewhere that most likely isn't even editable without the GUI (same with Windows (buried in the registry) and with Gnome's Network Manager (buried in ~/.gconf/system/networking/connections)).
- hexley 17y ago
  /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist (a plain text, XML file)
  - thwarted 17y ago
    Yeah, so this is the same as gnome's gconf settings for NetworkManager preferences. But that being said, the plist file format isn't all that great (there was a time when Apple had binary "compiled plist" files, but the pl command no longer supports that) -- the alternating "key" and value tags only associated by order in the file is kind of anti-XML. On one of my Xserves with two interfaces active, this file is 9k, massive for its purpose. This is not something that even an experienced administrator would want to edit using anything other than the GUI, doing so would be quite error prone. So if you want your settings to stick, you should be doing it from the GUI on OSX. The complexity of doing it from the GUI in a way that sticks and from the command line in a way that doesn't stick are roughly the same, but the results are different: to get it to stick by editing from the command line is quite a bit more complex.
scotty79 17y ago
Juvenile? That's a real problem people face every day because some designer/programmer failed to foresee it. This automation tool is a way to deal with the problem the way that user can understand. Sure ifconfig is superior way to do it bu it's beyond reach of most users. This kind of gui automation tool is something that empowers normal people to get around their problems.

by m0th87 17y ago

ugh 17y ago

I’m not quite average but certainly closer to average than most here on HN, so let me just say that I found this immediately intuitive. I wanted to try it. It’s a Rube Goldberg machine, but playing with those is always fun and intuitive. (By the way, that was all very explicit and non-automatic, would it be possible to do this in some way where you just hit record and then click your way through? You would just have to snap screenshots whenever the user is clicking. Might be a problem with things that change their appearance on mouse-over like drop down menus, but I guess that’s solvable.)

mquander 17y ago

Sure, but there's also a precondition for using this: you have to understand that it's actually even possible to automate repetitive tasks on a computer, and have the motivation to do so. Hell, I know programmers who don't do that. How many people fit that description, but will still find this easier than ifconfig? My guess is few. That said, I think this is a neat hack.

m0th87 17y ago
I think its usefulness (or lack thereof) can't accurately be critiqued by anecdotes from technical users, but rather needs to be quantified through usability testing. It's easy to blow this idea off, but the "solve something your users didn't know needed to be solved" advice I occasionally see on HN keeps echoing in my head.

thwarted 17y ago

it is a one-line ifconfig invocation for those that understand the terminal and know about ifconfig, which does not hold for the vast majority of users I know people who are just as much afraid of the terminal as they are of the network settings. And stepping someone through opening the terminal and typing something is approximately the same number of actions (in clicks and keystrokes) as navigating to the settings panel and typing in the info. And while I agree that the example of modifying the network settings is contrived and thus not a good example of the usefulness of this setup, the difference between modifying network settings via the system settings GUI and from the terminal with ifconfig is that one will be remembered after a reboot and one will not be despite both having similar surface complexity to change. This is mainly because the actual settings are buried in some obscure, OSX specific file somewhere that most likely isn't even editable without the GUI (same with Windows (buried in the registry) and with Gnome's Network Manager (buried in ~/.gconf/system/networking/connections)).

hexley 17y ago
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist (a plain text, XML file)
- thwarted 17y ago
  Yeah, so this is the same as gnome's gconf settings for NetworkManager preferences. But that being said, the plist file format isn't all that great (there was a time when Apple had binary "compiled plist" files, but the pl command no longer supports that) -- the alternating "key" and value tags only associated by order in the file is kind of anti-XML. On one of my Xserves with two interfaces active, this file is 9k, massive for its purpose. This is not something that even an experienced administrator would want to edit using anything other than the GUI, doing so would be quite error prone. So if you want your settings to stick, you should be doing it from the GUI on OSX. The complexity of doing it from the GUI in a way that sticks and from the command line in a way that doesn't stick are roughly the same, but the results are different: to get it to stick by editing from the command line is quite a bit more complex.

scotty79 17y ago

Juvenile? That's a real problem people face every day because some designer/programmer failed to foresee it. This automation tool is a way to deal with the problem the way that user can understand. Sure ifconfig is superior way to do it bu it's beyond reach of most users. This kind of gui automation tool is something that empowers normal people to get around their problems.