hugo@dartvax.UUCP (Peter Su) (12/10/87)
I don't really think that the "non-standard" parts of the HC user interface are a big problem. I think the big problem is the parts that Atkinson left out. To wit: 1) Multiple windows 2) Better support for the Laserwriter. 3) Drawing tools vs. painting tools. Pete -- CSNET: hugo@darmouth.edu UUCP: hugo@dartvax.UUCP (Sorry) ARPA: hugo%dartmouth.edu@relay.cs.net QUOTE:"Hi, hi hi hi hi hi...yo! Hi, Hi hi hi hi hiiii, hiiii" - Talking Heads
steele@sigma.cs.unc.edu (Oliver Steele) (12/11/87)
hugo@dartvax.UUCP (Peter Su) writes: >I don't really think that the "non-standard" parts of the HC user interface >are a big problem. I think the big problem is the parts that Atkinson left >out. To wit: > >1) Multiple windows >2) Better support for the Laserwriter. >3) Drawing tools vs. painting tools. 4) Slow movement from one stack to another. This causes input stuttering (the user clicks on a button in the home card, gets no immediate visual response, and clicks again). Combined with the fact that the double-click is already a valid virtual button on the mac, you've conditioned the user to double-click on HC buttons (Skinner would be proud!), and foo then has to outgrow this conditioning. Of the ~10 people I've watched start learning HC, this has been universal.
kurtzman@pollux.usc.edu (Stephen Kurtzman) (12/12/87)
In article <7729@dartvax.UUCP> hugo@dartvax.UUCP (Peter Su) writes: >I don't really think that the "non-standard" parts of the HC user interface >are a big problem. I think the big problem is the parts that Atkinson left >out. To wit: > >1) Multiple windows >2) Better support for the Laserwriter. >3) Drawing tools vs. painting tools. > I also don't see the non-standard interface as a big problem. I would like to add to the list of things left out though: 4) Multiple open stacks 5) Sort on multiple fields (The sort routine is stable so sequential sorts do the job. The problem here is speed. Doing two sorts in a row isn't that bad, but I have one stack that I occasionally sort on 8 different fields -- at least it gives me time for a coffee break. Really, this is a minor irritation.) 6) A compiled (i.e. non-interpretted) option for scripts. This would give faster execution (especially for numeric processing). 7) A find command that would discriminate between cards of different backgrounds, e.g. find "foo" in field 1 on background 2. Currently, for heterogeneous stacks one must put the "find" in a loop. This slows down processing significantly -- it seems on the order of a second for each find on the wrong background type. Again this is a minor irritation, but eliminating would be nice.
dorner@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (12/18/87)
>I don't really think that the "non-standard" parts of the HC user interface >are a big problem. I think the big problem is the parts that Atkinson left >out. To wit: I'd like to add to the list of missing HC features: Find BACKWARDS. I wrote a stack to manage my checkbook. I often want to search from the END of the stack to find the LAST occurrence of something. Unfortunately, I cannot. While I can write a script to do this, it's SLOW. Find is fast. ---- Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office Internet: dorner@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu UUCP: ihnp4!uiucuxc!dorner IfUMust: (217) 333-3339