7 ms·

Even worse than undiscoverable features are land mine features, where some subtle gesture triggers a wild and unwanted mode change. Extra credit if the mode ch

Even worse than undiscoverable features are land mine features, where some subtle gesture triggers a wild and unwanted mode change. Extra credit if the mode change is hard to get out of.

narag 6y ago
Windows keys started the nightmare for me decades ago. So nice hitting one of those while gaming full-screen! This conversation happened a thousand times: "but you can hit them again and restore what you were doing"... no, I can't, specially if I have pressed a dozen keys since. I used to buy IBM keyboards from more civilized times, but my dealer disappeared, maybe he was arrested?
- makecheck 6y ago
  My favorite is when I use control-L to clear the screen on a terminal and hit Windows-L by accident to lock the entire laptop.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Get you a gaming keyboard with a Windows key lock.
  - jasomill 6y ago
    Better yet, use any keyboard you like, and remap (left) Windows to a different key code, ideally corresponding to some key that's not present on your current keyboard layout and that, unlike the Windows key, is fully remappable by AutoHotkey, in-game options, etc., using something like https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys
  - narag 6y ago
    I don't play much lately, but I do have a Keyz Iridium. It was the cheapest mechanic keyboard I found, at least what feels more similar to mechanic. Don't get me wrong, the trippy colours are nice too. And... it has a combo to disable Windows keys!! Thank you very much :)
- Yizahi 6y ago
  My rather new HP laptop has scroll lock hidden on the unlabeled combination fn+C which is obviously right next to the daily used ctrl+C. It is trigger, and it doesn't LED or any OS indication that it's on or off. Good luck understanding why arrow keys are broken in Excel :)
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  Doesn't windows 10 have a gaming mode that disables that key in full screen?
Klathmon 6y ago
There's a windows feature like this which I hate with a passion. If you grab a window and shake it side to side, it minimizes all open windows... So sometimes I'll grab a window to move to my left monitor, decide instead I want it on the right one, and suddenly everything is gone and I now need to go open every single window one at a time. It even took me months to understand that the shaking was what caused it. I would just sometimes be working and suddenly everything is gone and I had no idea why.
- MetallicCloud 6y ago
  I also very much hate this feature, and trigger it often. However if you shake the window you have again, all the minimised windows should be restored.
  - bobbob1921 6y ago
    Agreed (re shake again to reverse), but not always - ie if you let off the mouse click , there is no option to shake again to undo the initial shake. Bottom line , I disableded this “feature”. I do think this is one of the best examples of the issues called out by this article/thread. (Or maybe how google docs has a button covering the scroll bar slider once you scroll to the very bottom of a docs file)
    - mdoms 6y ago
      This isn't correct. Shaking the window again will restore the minimised windows, whether it's from the original mouse-down or a future mouse-down. But I agree that it's a bad feature, and IMO it's a rare miss from the Windows UI team who if nothing else have developed excellent window management.
      - squiggleblaz 6y ago
        This isn't correct. There is something that happens which makes it forget which windows were open. I am not sure what it is. But is definitely the case that sometimes, I can shake again to put everything back the way I always wanted it, and sometimes I cannot.
NegativeLatency 6y ago
EX mode in vim
- 0xcde4c3db 6y ago
  Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed: golem$ ed ? help ? ? ? quit ? exit ? bye ? hello? ? eat flaming death ? ^C ? ^C ? ^D ? --- Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity. [1] [1] https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html
suresk 6y ago
The one that always got me was the feature on OS X where if you move your mouse to another screen and move down, it moves the dock to that screen. It is possible to do without meaning to and it is fairly loose with how it determines that you've done that, and so the first year or so I had 2 monitors, I'd do it once or twice per month without realizing how it happened.
- baggy_trough 6y ago
  Ugh, that kind of thing is the worst!
marssaxman 6y ago
Oh god. My phone has one of those - there's some sort of swipe gesture which puts it into a split-screen mode, which I have only ever invoked accidentally, and I have no idea how to get rid of it - none of my various guesses at possible anti-swipe actions have worked. When I pull my phone out of my pocket to discover that it has gotten into this state, I just reboot.
- baggy_trough 6y ago
  iPad multitasking modes are like that. Easy to trigger, impossible to get away from without a Google search.
  - robocat 6y ago
    You can disable it on the iPad from: Settings | Home Screen & Dock | Multitasking | Allow Multiple Apps No idea if the same setting exists on iPhone or if it disabled split screen through. The whole feature is so badly designed on iPad. I was forever detaching a Safari page and ending up with two Safari apps. So tapping the Safari icon wouldn't take me back, it only takes you to the detached page, and you think you have "lost" all the other pages. You need to close the detached page (none of that would be obvious to a novice). Also getting a page to detach into a popup by mistake, and then not being able to get rid of it (I still don't know the correct swiping motions!)
    - baggy_trough 6y ago
      It's one of the most baffling UI's I've seen. Like it's actively designed to thwart you.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - snypox 6y ago
    Usually, I don’t even know how did I trigger it. It takes me a few seconds to get out of it..
- 6y ago
CarbyAu 6y ago
On older Android a press and hold on an SMS conversation brought up the context menu options, of which there was only one: SPAM - block this number. So if you accidentally hold the press for a fraction too long you block that number. And then you wonder why your friend(s) don't love you anymore... To unblock it, you have to go to the Contacts and dig through options there, the SMS app showed nothing of help. It wasn't obvious that you had it blocked!

Even worse than undiscoverable features are land mine features, where some subtle gesture triggers a wild and unwanted mode change. Extra credit if the mode change is hard to get out of.

narag 6y ago

Windows keys started the nightmare for me decades ago. So nice hitting one of those while gaming full-screen! This conversation happened a thousand times: "but you can hit them again and restore what you were doing"... no, I can't, specially if I have pressed a dozen keys since. I used to buy IBM keyboards from more civilized times, but my dealer disappeared, maybe he was arrested?

makecheck 6y ago
My favorite is when I use control-L to clear the screen on a terminal and hit Windows-L by accident to lock the entire laptop.
chrisco255 6y ago
Get you a gaming keyboard with a Windows key lock.
- jasomill 6y ago
  Better yet, use any keyboard you like, and remap (left) Windows to a different key code, ideally corresponding to some key that's not present on your current keyboard layout and that, unlike the Windows key, is fully remappable by AutoHotkey, in-game options, etc., using something like https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys
- narag 6y ago
  I don't play much lately, but I do have a Keyz Iridium. It was the cheapest mechanic keyboard I found, at least what feels more similar to mechanic. Don't get me wrong, the trippy colours are nice too. And... it has a combo to disable Windows keys!! Thank you very much :)
Yizahi 6y ago
My rather new HP laptop has scroll lock hidden on the unlabeled combination fn+C which is obviously right next to the daily used ctrl+C. It is trigger, and it doesn't LED or any OS indication that it's on or off. Good luck understanding why arrow keys are broken in Excel :)
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Doesn't windows 10 have a gaming mode that disables that key in full screen?

Klathmon 6y ago

There's a windows feature like this which I hate with a passion. If you grab a window and shake it side to side, it minimizes all open windows... So sometimes I'll grab a window to move to my left monitor, decide instead I want it on the right one, and suddenly everything is gone and I now need to go open every single window one at a time. It even took me months to understand that the shaking was what caused it. I would just sometimes be working and suddenly everything is gone and I had no idea why.

MetallicCloud 6y ago
I also very much hate this feature, and trigger it often. However if you shake the window you have again, all the minimised windows should be restored.
- bobbob1921 6y ago
  Agreed (re shake again to reverse), but not always - ie if you let off the mouse click , there is no option to shake again to undo the initial shake. Bottom line , I disableded this “feature”. I do think this is one of the best examples of the issues called out by this article/thread. (Or maybe how google docs has a button covering the scroll bar slider once you scroll to the very bottom of a docs file)
  - mdoms 6y ago
    This isn't correct. Shaking the window again will restore the minimised windows, whether it's from the original mouse-down or a future mouse-down. But I agree that it's a bad feature, and IMO it's a rare miss from the Windows UI team who if nothing else have developed excellent window management.
    - squiggleblaz 6y ago
      This isn't correct. There is something that happens which makes it forget which windows were open. I am not sure what it is. But is definitely the case that sometimes, I can shake again to put everything back the way I always wanted it, and sometimes I cannot.

NegativeLatency 6y ago

EX mode in vim

0xcde4c3db 6y ago
Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed: golem$ ed ? help ? ? ? quit ? exit ? bye ? hello? ? eat flaming death ? ^C ? ^C ? ^D ? --- Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity. [1] [1] https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html

suresk 6y ago

The one that always got me was the feature on OS X where if you move your mouse to another screen and move down, it moves the dock to that screen. It is possible to do without meaning to and it is fairly loose with how it determines that you've done that, and so the first year or so I had 2 monitors, I'd do it once or twice per month without realizing how it happened.

baggy_trough 6y ago
Ugh, that kind of thing is the worst!

marssaxman 6y ago

Oh god. My phone has one of those - there's some sort of swipe gesture which puts it into a split-screen mode, which I have only ever invoked accidentally, and I have no idea how to get rid of it - none of my various guesses at possible anti-swipe actions have worked. When I pull my phone out of my pocket to discover that it has gotten into this state, I just reboot.

baggy_trough 6y ago
iPad multitasking modes are like that. Easy to trigger, impossible to get away from without a Google search.
- robocat 6y ago
  You can disable it on the iPad from: Settings | Home Screen & Dock | Multitasking | Allow Multiple Apps No idea if the same setting exists on iPhone or if it disabled split screen through. The whole feature is so badly designed on iPad. I was forever detaching a Safari page and ending up with two Safari apps. So tapping the Safari icon wouldn't take me back, it only takes you to the detached page, and you think you have "lost" all the other pages. You need to close the detached page (none of that would be obvious to a novice). Also getting a page to detach into a popup by mistake, and then not being able to get rid of it (I still don't know the correct swiping motions!)
  - baggy_trough 6y ago
    It's one of the most baffling UI's I've seen. Like it's actively designed to thwart you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- snypox 6y ago
  Usually, I don’t even know how did I trigger it. It takes me a few seconds to get out of it..
6y ago

CarbyAu 6y ago

On older Android a press and hold on an SMS conversation brought up the context menu options, of which there was only one: SPAM - block this number. So if you accidentally hold the press for a fraction too long you block that number. And then you wonder why your friend(s) don't love you anymore... To unblock it, you have to go to the Contacts and dig through options there, the SMS app showed nothing of help. It wasn't obvious that you had it blocked!