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 Nice one!
Affirmative European votes QUI, JA
on committee BOARD
for arcane communication device
OUIJA BOARD
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Not really - I spent a good ten minutes on it!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Once upon a time, everything was like vi and edlin: you had to remember keyboard shortcuts (which you could list on the screen -- if you could remember the keyboard shortcut to list keyboard shortcuts).
No-one was particularly happy with this, but it worked, so we used it.
To open programs, we had to type addresses and program names in little black boxes, which could be a pain, because after a while you have lots of programs and batch files, and you have to remember where they are and what they're called -- so programs like FIND soon became the most-used programs.
No-one was particularly happy with that, either, but it worked.
Then, someone brilliant thought of putting permanent bars at the top of program screens, with brackets around or underlines under the letters you had to press in combination with other keys -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs.
And everyone cheered!
Soon, an absolute genius thought: "Hey, we can turn that into a menu, so that instead of holding Alt and pressing letters, you just press Alt, then press the bracketed or underlined letter, and that drops down another list, where all you have to do is again press the bracketed or underlined letter!" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to dos programs.
And everyone cheered!
Then a bunch of bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing, came up with the Graphical user interface, or GUI, and the words at the top of the program screens became buttons, which you could click with a mouse, as well as typing the bracketed or underlined letters -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and made windows.
And everyone cheered!
The bright sparks who had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing also came up with the idea of using graphical shortcuts, little 64x64px borderless buttons, which you could double-click to open programs -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows.
And everyone cheered Loudly!
Then someone thought: "Hey, why do we have to use words, which take up a lot of space, at the top of program screens, when we can use little 32x32px buttons with pictures on them for each tool, rather than have to click through menus to get to them?" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows.
And everyone cheered Really Loudly!
Then someone (who was not microsoft) thought: "Hey, menus are really easy to use, so why don't we add a menu for programs and stuff, rather than make people open lots of boxes to get to the graphical shortcuts?" -- and, eventually, microsoft took up that idea, as well, and added it to windows.
And everyone was ecstatic. They could access their tools the way they needed to, and they could access program functions the way they needed to.
Then microsoft got the idea that it should have ideas of its own on how GUIs should be, and mighty wars were fought within the company, promoting this stupid idea and that stupid idea, and, as it is written that it should be, the biggest mouths with the loudest voices won the day.
microsoft introduced the "(ef)fluent interface", commonly known as "the ribbon" and "that useless piece of cr@p", for accessing a reduced selection of program features and functions, whilst taking up four times the screen space, and forced it upon everyone, so everyone had to do without menus altogether, and put all the tools they use regularly in a single toolbar, which does not even have dividers.
And everyone said "WTF is this cr@p? Give us back the interface that wasn't broken!"
And microsoft introduced baby-blocks for accessing programs, which everyone gave up on, and went back to typing program names in boxes (white ones, this time) to open their programs
And everyone said "WTF is this cr@p? Give us back the interface that wasn't broken!"
But microsoft was very proud of itself, because had finally added things to the user interface that were theirs, and they could "patent". And, because they had ticked boxes and names had been made within the company, it didn't matter to microsoft that no-one in their right mind would ever want to lease such useless interface elements.
So microsoft lived happily ever after.
Only computer users suffered.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: we had to type addresses and program names in little black boxes
I still do that today, using the edit box in the start menu instead of the dos command line.
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That's mentioned further down.
But, as you say, it's always been available as an option, which you're not alone in using (winkey + R always got plenty of use in my machines, especially for less-used programs, like regedit).
But with the baby-blocks interface, it became the only viable option, without installing third-party Start-menu tools. Fortunately, they backed off of the baby-blocks-only interface pretty quickly.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Missed that one.
All in all, your thread is pretty accurate.
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Not quite the only option - I pinned all my "frequently used" apps to the task bar, and forgot about the Start button, except to shut down.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Hell, if I pinned all my frequently-used apps, I wouldn't have any room left on the taskbar for open programs/windows -- so I put the Quick Start toolbar back, which does exactly the same thing, but takes up much less space (my taskbar has been two buttons deep since windows '95).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I've created hotkeys for my "frequently used" with AutoHotkey. The "not that frequently" used ones got a place on the task bar. And the rest gets started with "Win+R".
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The reason I pin the "frequent" ones, is that they get "Pinned lists" - which means that VS has 5 pinned projects, Libreoffice Calc has four, and so on. Plus, they are always in the same order on the task bar while they are running, so it's easy to switch to them (quicker than the ALT TAB list in many cases).
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Yes, I was tempted by the pinned-list feature, until I discovered that it was part of internet explorer, rather than the desktop.
I couldn't figure out why that was, so I gave it a miss.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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So to go forward with the current state of the evolution, you've had to go back to the old ways (mind you, my first reaction to baby-blocks was to install a shortcut-key app, so it's not only great minds that think alike).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Same here: put really often used stuff on the taskbar, put shortcuts to the other regularly used stuff in a number of folders ( customised, organised and sorted as wanted ) and use them as "toolbars" on the same taskbar.
End result: has been working really well since windows 98, one method works the same way for all versions since. Regardless of any UI changes they dream up.
As long as they stick to having a taskbar/toolbar its OK  . I would be really unhappy though if they did not  .
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I've been using a little gadget called KO Approach[^] for years, now.
It shows the content of folders as a menu, if you long-click, so I have folders down the side of my desktop for Network, Media, Graphics, Work, etc, populated with shortcuts and symlinks to stuff I need.
The only things certain about computer UIs are that one size does not fit all, and that baby-blocks are only fit for babies.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I agree with your rant, but I miss hte "evoultion" part :groan:
DURA LEX, SED LEX
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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The evolution was pretty linear:
Keyboard shortcuts --> shortcut bars --> menus --> menus + graphical buttons --> utter cr@p.
It's like the history of the Roman Empire: It got better and better and better until it was elephanted*.
* D'you see what I did, there?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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They improved it to death, I get it!
DURA LEX, SED LEX
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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Usually any "history of the GUI" includes how Steve Jobs stole his ideas from Xerox, but I see they've been omitted from yours. Anyway, I'll let you get on with your Microsoft bashing
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They're the company that "had nothing to do with microsoft, apple, google, ibm, or any of the other big names in computing".
I didn't think naming them was necessary, in these halls, especially because it would have meant having to name all the other innovators (which would have taken me whole minutes to look up).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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My first UI was in hardware: Hex keyboard and 7 segment LED displays. It still works as well as it ever did, probably because Mickeysoft never had anything to do with those old computers or any software that runs on them.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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CDP1802 wrote: 7 segment LED displays
You could always paint pastel-coloured rectangles around them!
Incidentally: WANT!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: Incidentally: WANT!
Traditionally, there is only one way. Build one yourself.
The modernized version: COSMAC Elf 2000[^]
The original: [^]
Either way, I would replace the switches with a hex keyboard for practical reasons. Still, it's very much the Raspberry Pi of 1976
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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CDP1802 wrote: The original: [^]
Oh, that is a thing of beauty!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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