Re: No sound...?

Jim <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jim <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

For example: I have TextWrangler services. One is `Open selected file'.
I could not understand why this exists. It apparently doesn't work. I
have selected a file in the Finder, used the TextWrangler service `Open
selected file', and TextEdit opened up with a blank document.

They're badly named - it should read something like "Open selected text
as a new document" but I guess that's just too long for the menu.

Menu items are supposed to be short reminders. The idea is that you
have documentation to explain what they do, and the menu item name
reminds you of that.

I'd argue 'reminders' and personally say 'descriptions'.

I'd not argue that. I'll just sit here and flatly state that your claim
is absurdly wrong and obviously so since `Add style' (eg) is no
description of a function.

If it is, you tell me *EXACTLY* what happens when you select that menu
item, in precise detail: what *EXACTLY* do I get?

For example, `Add style' in OmniGraffle. If that's a description, then
it tells the user exactly what the menu item does.

You tell me *EXACTLY* what it does - based on that menu item name.

I bet you can't.

Obviously there's a
limit to how accurately you can describe something when you only have one or
two words to play with but generally they're good enough for most people.

But generally, they are not, as anyone can see by looking at most
computer users.

The lack of any general outcry on this would appear to back me up.

The fact that most people cannot use their computers effectively backs
up my claim that menu items are reminders for what you're supposed to
have learnt some other way and do not function as descriptions as you
claim.

A lack of general outcry? Come on - where would that be made? You're
being absurd - it's an invalid point.

Unfortunately, documentation is no longer supplied, so all we have is
the reminder without the thing that tells you what you're being reminded
of.

Thus, the Mac becomes less accessible.

But I don't see badly named menus at all - I see a problem caused by a
refusal to document things that must be documented for them to be
properly accessible.

The problem here is how you define 'properly'. I accept that you,
personally, have problems using unfamiliar software without a decent manual,
but by and large most people don't seem to have this.

In my experience, no-one can work out how to use complicated software
from the menus. From what I have seen, virtually all PC users are
incapable of using their computers effectively because it's not possible
to learn how to do so properly from the trivial hints supplied by menu
names.

Most people use their computers horribly inefficiently - I've watched,
I've asked, I've found out. I've often seen people using huge humming
modern computers with all the latest and greatest software, working with
software in a fashion that's slower and more awkward than doing the same
job by hand with bits of paper.

I've watched people using powerful DTP software as if it were a simple
typewriter paradigm WP.

I've watched people using MS Word on PCs with CPUs running at hundreds
of MHz, with GBs of HD space, and they'd've been better off using
MacWrite on a twin floppy Mac Plus system running System 6.

All because they don't know how to use the software because it's not
documented and they can't work out how to use it from the menus.

Most people simply can't.

You could argue (rightly so) that people could learn how to use their
software _better_ if they had (and read) good quality manuals, but to imply
that software can't be accessed without them is just not true in the
general case.

<puzzled> What?

For sure one can get software to do stuff without understanding it, but
the point is to get the software to do what's needed in an efficient
manner. Most people are incapable of doing so.

So, for example, most people use MS Word as if it were Textedit - they
are completely incapable of making proper use of anything other than its
most trivial modes of operation.

That is because one cannot learn how to use it from the menus.

Do you get the idea?

For sure I can use undocumented software to do *some* things, but the
point is that I should be able to get proper use out of it.

I can't do so and *most people cannot do so*.

This is *NORMAL*. I'm not remotely unusual in this.

Rowland.


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