[lug] GUI support, can I help you?

[Riggs, Rob]

Just about every GUI application has keyboard shortcuts these days. And most
GUI apps remind the user of the keyboard shortcuts in the menu.

But I think we are moving away from my argument. We were talking about CLI
configuration tools. That generally means a curses interface, or a question
and answer session, ala the linux kernel's configuration tools. Try "make
config", "make menuconfig" and "make xconfig" and tell me which is more
user-friendly and easier -- even for the expert -- to navigate through and
complete. I find xconfig so much easier & faster.

Another good example is the difference between command-line IRC clients and
something like xchat. There is absolutely nothing that one can do faster
with any CLI IRC program I've seen. That's because you have the same
CLI-like interface if you want it. Same goes for Xemacs. Don't remember the
proper finger gymnastics for that rarely used command? Find it in the menu.

The problem with Windows and Mac is that the config files are no longer
text-based. CLI tools such as sed, awk, grep, etc. are useless to the
sysadmin in those environments. With those OSes one needs high-powered
scripting languages like Python with good OS integration/support modules to
automate configuration changes.

-Rob


-----Original Message-----
From: Timothy C. Klein [mailto:teece at silverklein.net]
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 2:22 PM
To: lug at lug.boulder.co.us
Subject: Re: [lug] GUI support, can I help you?


It is important to realize the difference here between the two
interfaces.  The GUI is generally easier for the new user:  they are
recognition based.  A user recognizes how the job is to be accomplished
by looking at the interface.  A CLI is generally easier for the
experienced user: they are recollection based.  One must recall how the
tool works to use it.  For the fisrt use, this is impossible.  Thus one
must read man pages, or whatever in the beginning.  The best result
would seem to be had, then, by combining the two.  That way, the new
user is not lost, but the expert user is not hampered by a slow
interface.  Anyone know of any example software that does this?  I don't
think it is very common.

The problem with Windows and Mac is that they have gone completely GUI,
or recognition, in many cases.  The expert is often hampered by this,
the newbie is usually helped by this, though.  Unix is usually the other
way, the expert user feels very at home, and has great power, but the
newbie is completely lost.  The best goal for Linux would be to give the
new user the ease of use for the most common tasks that is present in
the GUI world.  But at the same time, the expert tools
of the CLI should remain completely viable.

Just some random thoughts,

Tim

* Riggs, Rob (RRiggs at doubleclick.net) wrote:
> Some of the CLI interfaces I've seen are ridiculous and should have been
> stillborn. I would not use any of the adjectives below for the majority of
> CLI tools I've seen. The only exception is when the given CLI tool is
'vi'.
> 
> I'm really sick of the CLI worshipping so prevalent in the Unix community.
> CLI is great. I couldn't do my job half as well with out my command line
> tools. Grep, sed, awk, ImageMagick, etc. are indispensable. But GUI tools
> are a far more efficient for the user when systems grow to any appreciable
> complexity. The amount of information that can be conveyed in a GUI is
> orders of magnitude greater than that of a CLI. "A picture is worth a
> thousand words." -- Really, it's true!
> 
> -Rob
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: rotering at animalcules.com [mailto:rotering at animalcules.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 11:51 AM
> To: lug at lug.boulder.co.us
> Subject: Re: [lug] GUI support, can I help you?
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 11:20:13AM -0600, Harris, James wrote:
> 
> > These [command line tools] ARE the tools that the developer provided for
> > those of us who want to be old fashioned.
> 
> Command line tools are not quaint, archaic, scary, or old fashioned.
> They are compact, efficient, fast, flexible, transparent, and
> powerful.
> 
> If there's one thing I'm going to accomplish before I die it'll be to
> convince people that Flashy GUI != (necessarily good | better than CLI
> | necessarily easy).  If it takes large, pointed sticks of appreciable
> diameter then so be it.
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--
==============================================
== Timothy Klein || teece at silverklein.net   ==
== ---------------------------------------- ==
== "Hello, World" 17 Errors, 31 Warnings... ==
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