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Help was the first command that came to my mind. Atleast in my very early days, (this was in early 2000s) I did use lots of help. Maybe help was better then or
by sharmi 8y ago
Help was the first command that came to my mind. Atleast in my very early days, (this was in early 2000s) I did use lots of help. Maybe help was better then or I was so clueless that even the insipid quagmire of the help pages still proved to be useful.
But in general, I am talking about certain consistency among ui. Say you have opened a new program and you do not know where to start. We can go to 'File' and there is sure to be a "New Document"/"New Object"/"New Diagram"/"New <whatever-model-the-program-work-with>" available to start.
Similarly Edit, Insert, Preferences, Script, Debug and their visual and keyboard access methods are all paradigms that are consistent across GUI.
At the worst case, you can do a systematic exploration of the ui to find all possible actions one can perform. This has to be standardized to CLI also for a shot at widespread adaptation.
- CamTin 8y agoYeah, I guess we're talking less about "help" (F1 in Windows, or at least it used to be) than about the user-interface guidelines that mandate the "File" dialog and so. As for doing a "systemic exploration", this is largely the role that manpages or "-h" fills in traditional Unix programs, but you're right that we need a better solution for widespread adoption of a "modern" Slack-y CLI for nontechnical users. Maybe show HELM-style autocomplete "menu" of possible subcommands in the input area or sidebar?