Atari Mega Archive 1/Atari Mega Archive - Volume 1.iso/lists/gem/l_0799/501

Internet Message Format | 1994-08-27 | 5.1 KB

Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 18:22:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Timothy Miller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Digest
To: [e-mail]
In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.87.9406241858.A22568-0100000@grad>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Forget:

)Ugly, maybe, but I'm sure it is readable to him (otherwise he would do it
)differently).  Your code, while somewhat better, seems to be missing a
)few things:
)
)>            case Cancel:
)
)Constants should be uppercase.  IE:  CANCEL
)
)>            case Abandon:
)>                close;
)>
)>            case Reload:
)>                reload;
)
)There are no "break" commands here?!?  This means that if ABANDON was
)selected, close, reload, save, close, save as, and close would all be
)performed.  Not a Good Thing (TM).

All I did was reformat his code.  I made no other changes, and it's
obvious that he wasn't intending to write C code, but rather pseudo-code,
which is fine.  In that case, there is no need for break or proper
capitalization, etc.

And as he pointed out, this is for what happens after close, so some of
my assumptions were wrong.  Nevertheless, I didn't like the way his
colons and semicolons cluttered his code.  It was hard to read.
Basically, I missed the point of what his code did because I was too
preoccupied with its unreadablilty.


You have a good spreadsheet for your Atari?  Where?  What's it called?
Can you set seperate fonts, point sizes, attributes, borders, patterns,
and numerous other things on a per-cell basis?  If so, i want a copy of
that spreadsheet.


Ofir:

)>And, Jee, isn't it just TOO easy to solve the whole Ctrl-A problem by
)>changing it.  Once you change that, the problems are gone.
)
)Nope! It's not easy because it will require modification of almost all ST
)programs in Europe (that's the part of the world which has been following
)standards for GUI design). I think we've had enough of this ^A nonsense.
)We will have a vote on this as soon as Yat can sort out the prog to do it.

You seem to be missing the point.  There are two ways to fix the
problem.  Either you change the shortcut, or you change the software.
Changing the shortcut would be EASY.  Changing the software would NOT be
easy.  Which change is more catastrophic?  The developer would have to
make changes to his code that range from either putting in safety
features or going to a different block-handling method.  Why do you want
to make the programmer do such EXTENSIVE changes to his code to save
something as insignificalt and SELDOM USED as Ctrl-A for Select All, when
the SIMPLE solution is to change the shortcut and get it all over with?
Think about it.  Changing the shortcut requires very little work.
Changing anything else would be a headache for the programmer and perhaps
even catastrophic for the user.

If the next version of Atari Works uses a new block-handling system,
rather than fixing the REAL problem, just to save something as damn
stupid and insignificant as Ctrl-A, I'm NOT going to use it, and that
goes for any other program of the sort!

Your arguement is invalid.  You complain about programmers having to make
changes when keeping Ctrl-A would require MORE changes!


)>MY laziness?  GOOD GUI?  Am I not one of the people talking about NOT
)
)Can we see an example of this other than endless talk about CTRL+A? I've
)seen Edith by Annius and I wouldn't call it lazy programming.

I'm sure Edith is a FINE piece of work, although I haven't seen it.  I'm
sure it has no (or no BIG) problem with Ctrl-A, but he had to put more
work into the code to avoid the problems associated with Ctrl-A.

)>Changing Ctrl-A is so much simpler and ellegant than going through all of
)
)It's not simple at all and would be ignored by a large number of
)developers.

If they're going to follow your standard (which is obviously a good thing
to do), then they'll follow all of it.  So, to avoid having every program
with a dangerous option, you should change it to something less
dangerous.  They'll follow it.  And as someone pointed out, you should
have explanantions for your shortcut.  You could have a brief statement
about the avoidance of danger.


Christian:

)Another thing... Couldn't someone put up a preliminary voting system for
)things like Control-A or the big cursor block question. If there is a clear
)majority for one side, which will hopefully support existing standards,
)this should settle these annoying discussions and help increase the
)signal/noise ratio.

Which block-system is used may be beyond the scope of this proposal, but
since both systems will be using subsets of the SAME shortcut standard,
we should make sure that neither one is disadvantaged in favor of the
other or has dangerous shortcuts.  In the Big-cursor system Ctrl-A can be
dangerous, while in the other, it's merely annoying.



Again, I ask, in cases where there are two characters assigned to a key
(? and /, ' and ", [ and {, etc.), if there is a Ctrl-key used, can the
two be equivalent?  Like Ctrl-/ and Ctrl-? are exactly the same thing?
So, I don't have to use Shift-Ctrl for Ctrl-?.