840445m@aucs.uucp (Alan McKay) (10/22/89)
I have a good idea (I think) of something that should be incorporated into the next release of the OS. When the system pops up a requestor telling you to "Insert Volume X into any drive", you only have two options, "Retry" and "Cancel". I suggest that a third option ... "Why?" should be added to this. This new option, if chosen, would tell you what it is that the system is looking for. Yesterday I was having trouble with Lattice C popping up this requester for some unknown reason. I sure would have liked to have been able to find out what it was looking for. Is there any way to find out? -- + Alan W. McKay + + + Acadia University + "Courage my friend, it is not yet too late + + WOLFVILLE, N.S. + to make the world a better place." + + CANADA + -Tommy Douglas +
ralph@atrp.mit.edu (Ralph L. Vinciguerra) (10/23/89)
Making the requestors indicate what they want is a great idea! I'd be happy even if it didn't have a "why" gadget and just said so anyway. At least half the time a req pops up, in my head I go: "Why?" I second the motion.
UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (10/24/89)
In article <1989Oct22.134819.1796@aucs.uucp>, 840445m@aucs.uucp (Alan McKay) says: > >I have a good idea (I think) of something that should be incorporated >into the next release of the OS. When the system pops up a requestor >telling you to "Insert Volume X into any drive", you only have two >options, "Retry" and "Cancel". I suggest that a third option ... "Why?" >should be added to this. This new option, if chosen, would tell you what >it is that the system is looking for. Yesterday I was having trouble with >Lattice C popping up this requester for some unknown reason. I sure would >have liked to have been able to find out what it was looking for. Is there >any way to find out? >-- I haven't thought this out carefully. Here are some of the reasons the requestor has popped up: 1. A name was spelled wrong. 2. Software needs a volume that is not in a drive at the moment. 3. Software needs a logical device that should be assigned to some directory. So, I agree that this requestor could be smarter than just Retry/Cancel. For example, if the problem is #1 or #3, the user should be able to fix it from the workbench. lee
strasser@eniac.seas.upenn.edu ( Colin J. Strasser.) (10/24/89)
Both of the ideas passing through here (smarter & better looking requestors) are both excellent. I remember booting up my first Amiga and thinking, "Hey, these graphics are awesome -- why didn't Commodore use them in its window environment?" The NeXT, for instance, addresses both these issues in a neat way. It has "3-d" looking window borders, buttons, menus, and icons (and decent looking ARROWS!), which convey a sense of security to the user -- he feels that the company took time to do things right and finish the details. In addition, most of the programs I ran had a "Help" menu item, with subitems like "What is..." and "Why the beep?" which offered intuitive answers to most questions a new user might have. Something like that as a standard (or at least decent usage of the darn HELP key!) would go a long way to building confidence in new Amiga users, confi- dence both in their ability to use the machine and also in the machine itself. -Colin Colin Strasser University of Pennsylvania strasser@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Moore School of Electrical Engineering CI$: 72447,1650 Class of '90 -- Penn's 250th year!