3 ms·

Perhaps I'm misreading you, but what's wrong with "bridging the divide between menus and CLI's"? That kind of thing sounds like an excellent fit, especially fo

Perhaps I'm misreading you, but what's wrong with "bridging the divide between menus and CLI's"? That kind of thing sounds like an excellent fit, especially for the programs shown in the accompanying video. Some things just work better with a visual interface - web browsing, graphics work, etc - so the ability to get away from the graphical sparseness of a CLI implementation while keeping its speed and expressiveness sounds like an excellent compromise to me.

dredmorbius 15y ago
It depends on the purpose/goal. The HUD proposal of Shuttleworth, on reading, is actually somewhat similar to how vimperator presently works. I can activate the statusbar with a ':' (same as in vi), and either hit tab or start typing. Though I don't get teh shinay overlay transparent displays, I'll get a list of completions for commands, URLs, bookmarks, etc. Which is great when you're in front of a keyboard. When I'm using my phone (Android), I'm often annoyed at how niggly the interface is, and how much typing I have to do, in an environment which really does NOT support it well. There are also users who simply learn things by rote. They don't know the commands, they don't understand the process, they simply click on a known element or (rarely) type something -- rarely more than their username or password. "My mom" or "Aunt Tilly" are the classic (if sexist) examples, but the former is certainly accurate in my case. She actively fears computers and loses about 50% of her confidence the second you park her in front of one. As much as I think I'd like the HUD, I really do NOT think it would work for her. Which is where Ubuntu is getting schizoid. For the past five years, it's seemed that the distro has been aiming for wider and broader appeal, with ease-of-use functions that appeal to the 99% (or more accurately, the 99.99%) -- the technologically naive (or illiterate, if you prefer). Which really pisses off this particular element of the 0.01% when I'm stuck on that interface. It appears that the distro's taking a hard tack in the opposite direction now. My own suggestion: do NOT aim for a one-size-fits-all interface. Simply ain't gonna work. Sure, all you Mac users will try to convince me otherwise, but aqua's an interface I find myself grossly stymied in.

dredmorbius 15y ago

It depends on the purpose/goal. The HUD proposal of Shuttleworth, on reading, is actually somewhat similar to how vimperator presently works. I can activate the statusbar with a ':' (same as in vi), and either hit tab or start typing. Though I don't get teh shinay overlay transparent displays, I'll get a list of completions for commands, URLs, bookmarks, etc. Which is great when you're in front of a keyboard. When I'm using my phone (Android), I'm often annoyed at how niggly the interface is, and how much typing I have to do, in an environment which really does NOT support it well. There are also users who simply learn things by rote. They don't know the commands, they don't understand the process, they simply click on a known element or (rarely) type something -- rarely more than their username or password. "My mom" or "Aunt Tilly" are the classic (if sexist) examples, but the former is certainly accurate in my case. She actively fears computers and loses about 50% of her confidence the second you park her in front of one. As much as I think I'd like the HUD, I really do NOT think it would work for her. Which is where Ubuntu is getting schizoid. For the past five years, it's seemed that the distro has been aiming for wider and broader appeal, with ease-of-use functions that appeal to the 99% (or more accurately, the 99.99%) -- the technologically naive (or illiterate, if you prefer). Which really pisses off this particular element of the 0.01% when I'm stuck on that interface. It appears that the distro's taking a hard tack in the opposite direction now. My own suggestion: do NOT aim for a one-size-fits-all interface. Simply ain't gonna work. Sure, all you Mac users will try to convince me otherwise, but aqua's an interface I find myself grossly stymied in.