5 ms·

> In modern Windows, press Win-key and start to type, oops, it missed the first keypresses, presented the completely wrong results and made a mess of your workf

> In modern Windows, press Win-key and start to type, oops, it missed the first keypresses, presented the completely wrong results and made a mess of your workflow. The worst offender is the login prompt. In Gnome, from the lock screen, I simply start typing my password. As soon as I type the first letter of the password, the password prompt appears, and when I'm done I hit enter and it unlocks. On Windows, the first letter merely makes the prompt appear, but does not yet type into the prompt. In fact, it will only start feeding letters into the prompt once the little prompt-appearing-animation has finished. If I just start typing my password, it will eat the first three or four letters. So I hit enter, wait for the animation to finish, and only then start typing. That's not the end of the world, honestly. But it is a learned gesture that the system taught me by failing to do what I'd asked it to do. It just goes to show the attention to detail that makes a UI feel fluid and frictionless.

hulitu 5y ago
Win 10 tought me to type again at least CTRL+ALT if i want my password to be accepted from the first time. Clicking with the mouse sometimes works before entering the password. It seems that at MS and also in other areas (Android, Gnome) people want just to code new things but not debug or fix bugs. They also must be as simple as possible because: 1. code reuse sucks. 2. Thinking is hard.
fxtentacle 5y ago
That is one of the main reasons why I switched from XCode to CLion. XCode lost keystrokes, which drove me crazy. The other thing was that I could reliably type faster than XCode could display the letters, which made me feel like I'm drunk. CLion seems to be quite excellent at recording and replaying everything, including stuff I type while the auto-completion is loading. Plus it has a really fast key to screen loop.
- natdempk 5y ago
  All of the Jetbrains editors also have these bugs in some places too unfortunately. The main one I run into is when you open the fuzzy goto modal (CMD + O) there’s a delay before the window opens where if you paste/type anything it goes into the file you’re editing instead of the search box. It’s been like this for at least 5 years.
- cerved 5y ago
  The quality of JetBrains products are overall high
  - copperx 5y ago
    JetBrains develop the only modern software that makes me go "wow, that's amazing." Ok, maybe not. Honorable mentions to some Adobe's algorithms and Apple's Sidecar / Universal Control functionality.
- andai 5y ago
  JetBrains did a lot of work to reduce typing latency of their IDEs: https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2015/08/experimental-zero-latency-typing-in-intellij-idea-15-eap/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2015/08/experimental-zero-la... As an aside, I find it amusing that more latency is introduced by a USB keyboard than existed in an entire 80's computer (from keypress to rendering on screen). See also: Carmack's rant about how it takes longer to put a pixel on the screen than ping across the Atlantic.
  - WayToDoor 5y ago
    Link to the rent https://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-faster-than-sending-a-pixel-to-the-screen https://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-fa...
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    >As an aside, I find it amusing that more latency is introduced by a USB keyboard than existed in an entire 80's computer Uh what?
    - the_pwner224 5y ago
      Most normal keyboards, mice, and USB HIDs report events at a rate of 125 hz == 8 ms between reports. Gaming mice usually go up to 1000 Hz / 1ms, the wireless ones usually let you configure down to 500/250/125 Hz if you want a bit more battery life. I'm sure that gaming keyboards also have a high refresh rate. If you have a 144 Hz monitor that actually means your (normal) keyboard and mice are reporting events less often than your display is updating.
      - formerly_proven 5y ago
        A lot of gaming hardware is trash. 1000 Hz on the package, endless latency inside, buggy firmware, buggier and resource-hogging companion apps, which are always Windows-only, and there are still even "gaming keyboards" which are 2KRO, bad materials and so on That being said pretty much any 1000 Hz mouse is better than any 125 Hz mouse when using high refresh rates because the discrepancy between the 125 Hz mouse poll rate and the 120 or 144 Hz display causes very noticeable jitter. If you have a mouse where the poll rate can be adjusted, this can be easily A/B tested; it's quite visible in high-framerate recordings as well (this can be done in OBS by using the fractional frame rate selector and just inputting 144:1).
d1sxeyes 5y ago
> That's not the end of the world, honestly. But it is a learned gesture that the system taught me by failing to do what I'd asked it to do. Although I agree this is annoying, to be completely fair, it doesn't suggest that you should start typing your password immediately. You could also start typing 'news.ycombinator.com' and it wouldn't browse to HN, but you wouldn't say that it failed to do what you asked it to. Arguably, you have been 'taught' or you have inferred yourself that you should expect a sleeping system to immediately accept your keypresses as a password, which although reasonable is not necessarily a good practice. For example - I have two computers connected to the same keyboard, one is indeed Gnome, the other Windows. I have twice now typed my password into what I thought was my sleeping Gnome system, hit enter, only to have to apologise to someone on Teams because I accidentally sent them my password because my keyboard was sending my keypresses to the Windows PC.
- OrderlyTiamat 5y ago
  I... am sorry, but I think that is extremely bad practice. You should not put yourself in that position, and your experience in that position does not excuse the design flaws in windows. > You could also start typing 'news.ycombinator.com' and it wouldn't browse to HN, but you wouldn't say that it failed to do what you asked it to. Well firstly, that isn't what the prompt is for, so I'm struggling to see the relevance. However it is a good example for me- When I type C-l right now, I can _immediately_ start typing 'news.ycombinator.com'. There is no delay, no animation, nothing. I didn't go through a learning experience of finding out how long I should wait before typing- it's just ready. Fundamentally: _why_ should I have been "taught" anything about how long I should wait? I don't have to do that on my ubuntu laptop. I don't have to do that on firefox in the example you handed to me. It's bad when I have to learn that. The computer should never make me wait unnecessarily, and I find it worrying that people are so readily accepting of it.
  - d1sxeyes 5y ago
    > I... am sorry, but I think that is extremely bad practice. Completely correct - I'm not excusing my lack of attention there. > Well firstly, that isn't what the prompt is for That's exactly my point. There is no prompt displayed on the screen, you have not been asked for input. You are pre-empting the next prompt before the system is ready for it. > When I type C-l right now, I can _immediately_ start typing 'news.ycombinator.com'. There is no delay, no animation, nothing. I didn't go through a learning experience of finding out how long I should wait before typing- it's just ready. Agreed - but that's with the application already open. From the lock screen, it won't do what you intend. With Firefox running and in focus, Ctrl + L tells the application to focus the address bar, but it only works in that context, you first have to prepare the correct context (computer unlocked, Firefox running, in the foreground and focused). On Windows, Ctrl + Alt + Del tells the system to wake, not 'the next characters entered will necessarily be the password of the most recently logged in user'. In fact, I tested a little bit, and often Ctrl + Alt + Del on a sleeping system actually asks me to enter a username first, not a password, although in some cases the username is pre-filled for me, and the password prompt will be focused. I cannot necessarily know a priori which I will be asked for until the system wakes and decides. As soon as Windows displays the prompt, you can type into it (same as Gnome). The only difference is that Windows requires you to first wake and then authenticate once the system is woken, while Gnome allows you to do both simultaneously. There is one particular 'pro' to the Windows approach of requiring Ctrl+Alt+Del which is that it's an interrupt sequence. If a malicious actor created a full screen application that mimics the Windows password prompt, it would not be effective because the Ctrl+Alt+Del sequence cannot be handled by an application. The same is not true for Gnome - if a malicious actor created a full screen application that mimics the login prompt on Gnome, you could be tricked into entering your password.
formerly_proven 5y ago
iirc this is a Windows 8/10 regression and worked perfectly on Windows 7.
aitchnyu 5y ago
When I log into a Win 10 virtual desktop with 1024*768, the login form with 2 text fields and a button gets shoved into a box and I have to scroll down to see it fully.
inetknght 5y ago
> In Gnome, from the lock screen, I simply start typing my password. As soon as I type the first letter of the password, the password prompt appears, and when I'm done I hit enter and it unlocks. Congratulations! You were able to recognize that it's a _login screen_ without seeing that there's a hidden password field. The first time I booted to Gnome I waited damn near ten minutes for it to tell me it's ready for my login before I decided to start typing things to see if it was stuck. It's _not_ intuitive.
- brimble 5y ago
  Miming mobile OS lock screens is one of the weirdest damn things about modern desktop trends. It's so obviously a bad idea. I can't even figure out what useful functionality anyone thought that would provide. It's a fucking desktop, there's plenty of room to stick notifications or the weather or whatever on the same screen as the login prompt, if that's what you want.
  - dylan-m 5y ago
    One unfortunate reality is, for a lot of new users - especially people who haven't used desktop computers before - their first computer was a mobile device. If we don't want Apple and Google to take over the entire space, we need to meet them halfway. The lock screen is weird, though, I agree. The newer (blurry background) one is better than the old one with the tedious swipe animation, but really could use a persistent "do this to unlock" prompt / button, because many people just aren't comfortable poking their computer unless they know what it is going to do. A lot of modern UI design unfortunately forgets that. For what it's worth, the original design for GNOME's current lock screen involved bridging the gap between it and the login / switch user screen, which _would_ involve some more UI elements, but the actual implementation must have stalled somewhere.
    - ldng 5y ago
      Oh ok, so people don't make the difference between a mobile phone and a computer. That is also why they don't know how to use a TV because it's not like a smartphone, right ? That was a very bad idea from the very start. But it's the motto Gnome 3 was built on... I agree with the initial comment, Human-Computer Interraction SCIENCE went down the toilet drain to be replaced with so called UI/UX "experts"
copperx 5y ago
It's certainly not the end of the world, but it's death by a thousand papercuts. I find macOS has fewer sharp edges (but still has plenty of them), and Linux too, once the system is configured and only used for writing code.

hulitu 5y ago

Win 10 tought me to type again at least CTRL+ALT if i want my password to be accepted from the first time. Clicking with the mouse sometimes works before entering the password. It seems that at MS and also in other areas (Android, Gnome) people want just to code new things but not debug or fix bugs. They also must be as simple as possible because: 1. code reuse sucks. 2. Thinking is hard.

fxtentacle 5y ago

That is one of the main reasons why I switched from XCode to CLion. XCode lost keystrokes, which drove me crazy. The other thing was that I could reliably type faster than XCode could display the letters, which made me feel like I'm drunk. CLion seems to be quite excellent at recording and replaying everything, including stuff I type while the auto-completion is loading. Plus it has a really fast key to screen loop.

natdempk 5y ago
All of the Jetbrains editors also have these bugs in some places too unfortunately. The main one I run into is when you open the fuzzy goto modal (CMD + O) there’s a delay before the window opens where if you paste/type anything it goes into the file you’re editing instead of the search box. It’s been like this for at least 5 years.
cerved 5y ago
The quality of JetBrains products are overall high
- copperx 5y ago
  JetBrains develop the only modern software that makes me go "wow, that's amazing." Ok, maybe not. Honorable mentions to some Adobe's algorithms and Apple's Sidecar / Universal Control functionality.
andai 5y ago
JetBrains did a lot of work to reduce typing latency of their IDEs: https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2015/08/experimental-zero-latency-typing-in-intellij-idea-15-eap/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2015/08/experimental-zero-la... As an aside, I find it amusing that more latency is introduced by a USB keyboard than existed in an entire 80's computer (from keypress to rendering on screen). See also: Carmack's rant about how it takes longer to put a pixel on the screen than ping across the Atlantic.
- WayToDoor 5y ago
  Link to the rent https://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-faster-than-sending-a-pixel-to-the-screen https://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-fa...
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  >As an aside, I find it amusing that more latency is introduced by a USB keyboard than existed in an entire 80's computer Uh what?
  - the_pwner224 5y ago
    Most normal keyboards, mice, and USB HIDs report events at a rate of 125 hz == 8 ms between reports. Gaming mice usually go up to 1000 Hz / 1ms, the wireless ones usually let you configure down to 500/250/125 Hz if you want a bit more battery life. I'm sure that gaming keyboards also have a high refresh rate. If you have a 144 Hz monitor that actually means your (normal) keyboard and mice are reporting events less often than your display is updating.
    - formerly_proven 5y ago
      A lot of gaming hardware is trash. 1000 Hz on the package, endless latency inside, buggy firmware, buggier and resource-hogging companion apps, which are always Windows-only, and there are still even "gaming keyboards" which are 2KRO, bad materials and so on That being said pretty much any 1000 Hz mouse is better than any 125 Hz mouse when using high refresh rates because the discrepancy between the 125 Hz mouse poll rate and the 120 or 144 Hz display causes very noticeable jitter. If you have a mouse where the poll rate can be adjusted, this can be easily A/B tested; it's quite visible in high-framerate recordings as well (this can be done in OBS by using the fractional frame rate selector and just inputting 144:1).

d1sxeyes 5y ago

> That's not the end of the world, honestly. But it is a learned gesture that the system taught me by failing to do what I'd asked it to do. Although I agree this is annoying, to be completely fair, it doesn't suggest that you should start typing your password immediately. You could also start typing 'news.ycombinator.com' and it wouldn't browse to HN, but you wouldn't say that it failed to do what you asked it to. Arguably, you have been 'taught' or you have inferred yourself that you should expect a sleeping system to immediately accept your keypresses as a password, which although reasonable is not necessarily a good practice. For example - I have two computers connected to the same keyboard, one is indeed Gnome, the other Windows. I have twice now typed my password into what I thought was my sleeping Gnome system, hit enter, only to have to apologise to someone on Teams because I accidentally sent them my password because my keyboard was sending my keypresses to the Windows PC.

OrderlyTiamat 5y ago
I... am sorry, but I think that is extremely bad practice. You should not put yourself in that position, and your experience in that position does not excuse the design flaws in windows. > You could also start typing 'news.ycombinator.com' and it wouldn't browse to HN, but you wouldn't say that it failed to do what you asked it to. Well firstly, that isn't what the prompt is for, so I'm struggling to see the relevance. However it is a good example for me- When I type C-l right now, I can _immediately_ start typing 'news.ycombinator.com'. There is no delay, no animation, nothing. I didn't go through a learning experience of finding out how long I should wait before typing- it's just ready. Fundamentally: _why_ should I have been "taught" anything about how long I should wait? I don't have to do that on my ubuntu laptop. I don't have to do that on firefox in the example you handed to me. It's bad when I have to learn that. The computer should never make me wait unnecessarily, and I find it worrying that people are so readily accepting of it.
- d1sxeyes 5y ago
  > I... am sorry, but I think that is extremely bad practice. Completely correct - I'm not excusing my lack of attention there. > Well firstly, that isn't what the prompt is for That's exactly my point. There is no prompt displayed on the screen, you have not been asked for input. You are pre-empting the next prompt before the system is ready for it. > When I type C-l right now, I can _immediately_ start typing 'news.ycombinator.com'. There is no delay, no animation, nothing. I didn't go through a learning experience of finding out how long I should wait before typing- it's just ready. Agreed - but that's with the application already open. From the lock screen, it won't do what you intend. With Firefox running and in focus, Ctrl + L tells the application to focus the address bar, but it only works in that context, you first have to prepare the correct context (computer unlocked, Firefox running, in the foreground and focused). On Windows, Ctrl + Alt + Del tells the system to wake, not 'the next characters entered will necessarily be the password of the most recently logged in user'. In fact, I tested a little bit, and often Ctrl + Alt + Del on a sleeping system actually asks me to enter a username first, not a password, although in some cases the username is pre-filled for me, and the password prompt will be focused. I cannot necessarily know a priori which I will be asked for until the system wakes and decides. As soon as Windows displays the prompt, you can type into it (same as Gnome). The only difference is that Windows requires you to first wake and then authenticate once the system is woken, while Gnome allows you to do both simultaneously. There is one particular 'pro' to the Windows approach of requiring Ctrl+Alt+Del which is that it's an interrupt sequence. If a malicious actor created a full screen application that mimics the Windows password prompt, it would not be effective because the Ctrl+Alt+Del sequence cannot be handled by an application. The same is not true for Gnome - if a malicious actor created a full screen application that mimics the login prompt on Gnome, you could be tricked into entering your password.

formerly_proven 5y ago

iirc this is a Windows 8/10 regression and worked perfectly on Windows 7.

aitchnyu 5y ago

When I log into a Win 10 virtual desktop with 1024*768, the login form with 2 text fields and a button gets shoved into a box and I have to scroll down to see it fully.

inetknght 5y ago

> In Gnome, from the lock screen, I simply start typing my password. As soon as I type the first letter of the password, the password prompt appears, and when I'm done I hit enter and it unlocks. Congratulations! You were able to recognize that it's a _login screen_ without seeing that there's a hidden password field. The first time I booted to Gnome I waited damn near ten minutes for it to tell me it's ready for my login before I decided to start typing things to see if it was stuck. It's _not_ intuitive.

brimble 5y ago
Miming mobile OS lock screens is one of the weirdest damn things about modern desktop trends. It's so obviously a bad idea. I can't even figure out what useful functionality anyone thought that would provide. It's a fucking desktop, there's plenty of room to stick notifications or the weather or whatever on the same screen as the login prompt, if that's what you want.
- dylan-m 5y ago
  One unfortunate reality is, for a lot of new users - especially people who haven't used desktop computers before - their first computer was a mobile device. If we don't want Apple and Google to take over the entire space, we need to meet them halfway. The lock screen is weird, though, I agree. The newer (blurry background) one is better than the old one with the tedious swipe animation, but really could use a persistent "do this to unlock" prompt / button, because many people just aren't comfortable poking their computer unless they know what it is going to do. A lot of modern UI design unfortunately forgets that. For what it's worth, the original design for GNOME's current lock screen involved bridging the gap between it and the login / switch user screen, which _would_ involve some more UI elements, but the actual implementation must have stalled somewhere.
  - ldng 5y ago
    Oh ok, so people don't make the difference between a mobile phone and a computer. That is also why they don't know how to use a TV because it's not like a smartphone, right ? That was a very bad idea from the very start. But it's the motto Gnome 3 was built on... I agree with the initial comment, Human-Computer Interraction SCIENCE went down the toilet drain to be replaced with so called UI/UX "experts"

copperx 5y ago

It's certainly not the end of the world, but it's death by a thousand papercuts. I find macOS has fewer sharp edges (but still has plenty of them), and Linux too, once the system is configured and only used for writing code.