Re: SE2b GUI comments
Re: SE2b GUI comments
- Subject: Re: SE2b GUI comments
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 19:30:29 +0000
Tim Bumgarner wrote:
One of the aims of the new script editor is to keep it simple and
not get too complicated in it's usage.
A most noble goal, imho. Simplicity (i.e. uncluttered interface,
ease-of-use) ought to be seen as an important feature too [1].
Doesn't mean you can't have features, of course, just that you gotta
choose 'em carefully [2].
Besides, there's always third parties (e.g. Satimage, LNS) who are
more than happy to provide widgets X, Y and Z to the power users that
need them. It's not like SE has to be all things to all men, and it'd
be wrong to try.
--
One alteration I would suggest: mirror results of the 'log' command
into its own log window. Right now, they appear as comments in the
Event log, which is okay if what you're interested in is the messages
sent to osaxen and other apps. But 'log' could be a much more
valuable tool in itself - basic debugging [3], progress reporting,
etc. - if values were [also] displayed in their original form in a
dedicated "User Log" window. [4]
More technically-ambitious suggestions:
- an option in Find & Replace for matching text within specific
keyword types; e.g. match text only in literals, or only in variable
names (VERY useful)
- smart command completion; e.g. start typing "make new", or
"duplicate", and the editor displays a context-sensitive list of
object types which are valid for that parameter. [5]
(Not sure if either of those is practical within the limits of SE/OSA
without a world of kludging, but both would be killer features -
adding lots of power and ease-of-use without befuddling the UI.)
--
Last, a couple of comments on SE2's Find and Replace dialog:
- The 'starts with' and 'whole words' matching options don't seem to
have an effect. Is this a bug?
- Overloading the Next button with two different behaviours is
confusing and somewhat annoying (i.e. finds next match when clicked,
vs. finds next match AND dismisses dialog when Return key is
pressed). It took me a while to figure out what was going on - stupid
dialog kept dismissing itself when I didn't expect it to.
HTH
has
--
[1] Blame marketing hype and user naivety for thinking that 5000
"features" always means "better".
[2] e.g. I wouldn't describe SE1 as "simple"; more like underpowered.
Lack of basic drag-n-drop text and find-and-replace actually made it
harder to use - and annoying.
[3] Frankly I'm never bothered for a debugger in AS, when popping a
few log statements into a handler while testing is such a no-brainer.
[4] c.f. Satimage's Smile, which writes logged values to its Console
window. Lovely feature.
[5] Not meant as an alternative to improving dictionaries so that
each class lists the commands it responds to, but a very useful
editor enhancement.
--
http://www.barple.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk -- The Little Page of AppleScripts
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