3 ms·

While I agree that a GUI can be a bit more discoverable in general, I don't think CLIs (and more generally, terminal-based programs) are necessarily for the l33

While I agree that a GUI can be a bit more discoverable in general, I don't think CLIs (and more generally, terminal-based programs) are necessarily for the l33t crowd. We've just been conditioned that way by the fact that most user-facing applications these days are GUI based. But think of the DOS-based programs of yore, like WordPerfect 5, and the Turbo C/Pascal IDEs... they had menus on screen, easy-to-access help screens, etc. to guide the novice. (What's the Web-app equivalent to the F1 key?) History shows that WordPerfect was fine to use as a non-technical person. (I wish our modern word processors were so simple to use as WP 5, actually -- modern app-design trends have bloated the word processor into a confusing mess, IMO, and I think the average office worker who has worked in both generations might agree.) I really like the approach taken by the 'which-key' extension for Emacs, which is particularly well used in the Spacemacs distribution. Pressing the space bar pulls up a very nicely organized menu of actions, including access to help. It's extremely helpful both as a memory aid, and also for discovering new features. Obviously a nice menu doesn't get the user fully past the initial Emacs learning curve, which supports your argument. But for the next level of user -- from novice to initiate -- it's a tremendous productivity boost. - https://github.com/justbur/emacs-which-key https://github.com/justbur/emacs-which-key - http://spacemacs.org/ http://spacemacs.org/

0x445442 7y ago
Also, natural language can be quite discoverable if designed properly. Jef Raskin and his son Aza did quite a bit of work in this area. Things like Alfred on the Mac, and a bunch of different IDEs nibble around the edges of this concept with EMACS Meta-X taking it the farther than the others. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVVXNlOFqXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVVXNlOFqXA
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> I really like the approach taken by the 'which-key' extension for Emacs, which is particularly well used in the Spacemacs distribution. Pressing the space bar pulls up a very nicely organized menu of actions, including access to help. It's extremely helpful both as a memory aid, and also for discovering new features. It's even nicer than that (in particular, when you're not using Spacemacs): Emacs has a lot of multi-key commands (just like Vim). Whenever you pause in the middle of such command for a brief while (0.5 second by default), it'll pop up a sidebar listing you keys you can press to continue along with the command they execute. So e.g. there's a command you want to invoke, you remember it was under C-c something, but don't remember the exact combination. With which-key enabled, you just press C-c and wait until a list of available continuations shows itself. It's also useful for command discovery (what's there under C-c? what's under C-c C-v?). Speaking of similar techniques, I like the way Magit works even better. Most commands involve several key presses, like "d d" for diffing against the thing you're pointing at, or "l l" to show current log. So whenever you press "d", a popup like this appears (bottom 2/3 of the screenshot): https://magit.vc/screenshots/popup-diff.png https://magit.vc/screenshots/popup-diff.png It immediately shows you all the different keys related to [d]iffing, including some sequences that set flags (like e.g. -f). It disappears as soon as you press the key. The principle here is that you'll quickly memorize most frequently used commands and type them so fast you won't even notice the popup, but whenever you don't remember something or want to explore, there's always something showing you the next steps.
- gmfawcett 7y ago
  Totally agreed. Magit's interface feels like the "curated" approach -- they laid out all the options precisely to optimize your use of the tool. This is great to have in small, task-dedicated parts of Emacs. But then we also get complete, "uncurated" discoverability such as in your C-c example. I think that Spacemacs is a decent compromise between the two, covering a large swath of functions with a loosely organized menu structure. Although they occasionally clobber some key bindings in an annoying way (org-mode and magit come to mind), it's nice to be able to find "text" things under the text menu, even when you don't remember the key-binding at all. It's surprising how well the three modalities (curated magit, general which-key, and semi-curated Spacemacs) work together, and stay out of each other's way (for the most part!).

0x445442 7y ago

Also, natural language can be quite discoverable if designed properly. Jef Raskin and his son Aza did quite a bit of work in this area. Things like Alfred on the Mac, and a bunch of different IDEs nibble around the edges of this concept with EMACS Meta-X taking it the farther than the others. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquity_(Firefox) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVVXNlOFqXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVVXNlOFqXA

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> I really like the approach taken by the 'which-key' extension for Emacs, which is particularly well used in the Spacemacs distribution. Pressing the space bar pulls up a very nicely organized menu of actions, including access to help. It's extremely helpful both as a memory aid, and also for discovering new features. It's even nicer than that (in particular, when you're not using Spacemacs): Emacs has a lot of multi-key commands (just like Vim). Whenever you pause in the middle of such command for a brief while (0.5 second by default), it'll pop up a sidebar listing you keys you can press to continue along with the command they execute. So e.g. there's a command you want to invoke, you remember it was under C-c something, but don't remember the exact combination. With which-key enabled, you just press C-c and wait until a list of available continuations shows itself. It's also useful for command discovery (what's there under C-c? what's under C-c C-v?). Speaking of similar techniques, I like the way Magit works even better. Most commands involve several key presses, like "d d" for diffing against the thing you're pointing at, or "l l" to show current log. So whenever you press "d", a popup like this appears (bottom 2/3 of the screenshot): https://magit.vc/screenshots/popup-diff.png https://magit.vc/screenshots/popup-diff.png It immediately shows you all the different keys related to [d]iffing, including some sequences that set flags (like e.g. -f). It disappears as soon as you press the key. The principle here is that you'll quickly memorize most frequently used commands and type them so fast you won't even notice the popup, but whenever you don't remember something or want to explore, there's always something showing you the next steps.

gmfawcett 7y ago
Totally agreed. Magit's interface feels like the "curated" approach -- they laid out all the options precisely to optimize your use of the tool. This is great to have in small, task-dedicated parts of Emacs. But then we also get complete, "uncurated" discoverability such as in your C-c example. I think that Spacemacs is a decent compromise between the two, covering a large swath of functions with a loosely organized menu structure. Although they occasionally clobber some key bindings in an annoying way (org-mode and magit come to mind), it's nice to be able to find "text" things under the text menu, even when you don't remember the key-binding at all. It's surprising how well the three modalities (curated magit, general which-key, and semi-curated Spacemacs) work together, and stay out of each other's way (for the most part!).