packbat | (no subject)

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whinging

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I should get a Twitter account. If I had one, I would have just posted this:

Things that cheese me off #eleventy-billion: word processors that italicize or deitalicize the nearest word when you hit Cmd-I, rather than simply switching between typing in plaintext and italics.

Just saying.

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I've got one (http://twitter.com/dyaso), and have to say it's not worth the effort. Though if you work in a large office and need to keep track of what everyone else is up to it might be very useful.

The list of things that piss me off about User Interface design could probably fill a small book (dark text on a light background (it's like trying to read from a lightbulb), Windows's recursive filesystems, the layout of keyboards (the dexterous thumbs are wasted on the spacebar while the pinky fingers have to deal with like a dozen keys each), ...)

Ah, well. At least it was a cute framework for a fluff post.

(So, any opinion on the Dvorak keyboard?)

Never tried Dvorak, but many of the cognoscenti claim to prefer it.

if/when you join twitter, let me know. i like following my friends. :) plus, if you don't mind yammering, well, i yammer on constantly....

And yet for each and every word processor that does switch between typing new characters in plaintext or italics when you press Crtl+I, there'll be someone there saying:

Things that make me want to break things, 21654-D: Word processors where Ctrl+I toggles italics for new text instead of italicising the nearest word.

That said, I prefer the plaintext-italic-switchy behaviour. So, mine would probably be:

You know what really bothers me? Word processors where lazy programmers have picked their favourite behaviour - say, toggling italics or italicising the nearest word when a user presses Ctrl+I - rather than taking the extra five minutes to make it user-configurable. By all means, pick a default - whatever one you like - but give the user the opportunity to decide how their software behaves.

Verbose, sure - but right.

You are, of course, correct. :D

Something that pisses me off: programs that make everything configurable, thus giving every user plenty of extra opportunities to screw it up beyond anybody's ability to make sense of it.

...crud, this is one of those Scylla-and-Charybdis things, innit?

Twitter will swallow your soul. Until you get bored with it, anyway.

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