Blunt Jackson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Do I consider this a problem? Not particularly. It is my problem, as > much as anyone's. This is a sophisticated sysadmin tool, and I am only > an occasional sysadmin, by no means sophisticated.
So, I guess some people simply don't like the *type* of control interface dselect offers, cause they want to see menus and widgets all around instead of having to learn that $keystroke will perform $action. Their main grief towards dselect is therefore formulated as "awkward, non-intuitive user interface" as you wrote above. Well, I don't think that is so important because I use dselect relatively often and this type of interface allows very efficient operation. Of course, things are a bit different for you since you said that you can spend six months without using it. The situation is IMHO a bit similar to the vi case: I find vi's interface awkward, non-intuitive, just as you qualified dselect's one. But I can understand that some people happen to get used to it, find it efficient and even like it. It's their right, after all. And claiming that vi is a POS just because I don't like its interface is probably not right. > important, you even have to think about how to make *them* happy. An > owner, interested in user interface, might take it upon him- or > herself to start a thread asking for interface suggestions, in a place > where users congregate. Ask questions like: "What text-based > applications do you consider to be examples of good design?" Focus on I haven't witnessed any discussion of this type, but I suppose that users would have conflicting views on the subject. Some would want a very easy to understand interface where you just have to follow menus without having to learn any keystroke, while others would prefer an interface where a limited number of keystrokes is enough to get the job done. And, er, I like dselect as it is[1], and am not particularly interested in such a discussion. :-p [1] That doesn't mean I think it's perfect (for instance, I dream of the day where debtags will be fully operational and integrated in dselect). Simply, I wouldn't welcome radical changes in the control interface that would make it less efficient. -- Florent