Re: [newbie] A note about user-friendliness
On Tue, 10 Jul 2001 07:25, jennifer wrote: How is one to tell?? I mention that I recently came across the instructions on how to install the new fonts, but I haven't had the time yet to sit down and really understand them. From the advice I got in other groups, I can simply copy all the true type fonts from my windows machine (burn them if neccesary, I didn't think of doing that)and they were good to go on my linux box. Do you all see what I mean?? This is alot of trouble to go through just to be able to read the type face on the manufacturers website...You would think that Mandrake would cater to their own community and either include the Arial font, or compose their website in linux-readable format Mandrake cannot include Arial in their distro, since it is copyrighted by Monotype Corp (I believe). Their site is made for Helvetica, which is readily available for GNU/Linux. --- Randy Kramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Be careful to do this only for fonts which you have the legal right to use on other computers. Randy Kramer Salvatore Enrico Indiogine wrote: What I did was to burn the xxx fonts on a CD and install then on all MDK computers using the MDK font installer. Easy to do. = Jennifer Registered Linux User #221463 Yahoo IM: jlynn2k __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ -- Sridhar Dhanapalan. There are two major products that come from Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence. -- Jeremy S. Anderson
Re: [newbie] A note about user-friendliness
civileme wrote: If people would take notes of a session they had with software manager, we would be able to see where their intuition leads them (we are spoiled by being close to its design and implementation Here's something that happened to me yesterday with Software Manager. I was downloading a rpm file from a mirror site when my modem lost the connection (a not uncommon situation in our rural area). The Software Manager continued to spin the indicator despite the fact that nothing was happenning. I had the modem reconnect, hoping the download would resume where it was before the connection was lost. Well, nothing happened. No more downloading started. After five minutes I gave up and had the modem hang up (we have to pay for local phone calls by the minute). Software Manager continued to spin the rpminstall (whatever it's called). I couldn't click on menus, stop rpminstall, or exit Software Manager. I finally had to click on Xkill and then the Software Manager window. It would be nice to at least know what is going on and to have a way to cancel the download if the connection drops, and then to close down Software Manager. --Judy Miner
Re: [newbie] A note about user-friendliness
Perhaps this is off subject and I certainly would not want to start a linux is bad, very very bad war,but it seems to me that in my few short weeks apart of this list, I have seen more questions around things, like fonts, sound cards and video cards. Now, I know hardware support is not Mandrakes fault, but the font thing does sort of blow my mind. Althought it does not *seem* like a usability issue, it has certainly hindered my abilility to solve my own problems. For instance...I want to download the reference manual off of mandrakes website. I visit the page and can't read a thing. Fonts are messed up. So I join a mailing list that gives me advice on how to fix my fonts. (xfree86 file) Great, that helps, but I still can't see windows fonts. (or mandrakes webpage) Mailing list advice: Import windows fonts. But I can't do that, I don't have windows installed on the same machine. Mailing list advice: I get links to websites to download Font files. Can you guess what happenes next? They files are all executable or in windows format And don't tell me to run WiNE! I can't even download a manual to tell me what WINE is!!! My fonts are still not perfect. Ans what really gets me is that the Mandrake web-developers created half their site in the unreadable-by-linux-Arial font face I did finally find instructions on the mandrake website on how to rememdy this problem. But I had to copy the text from the unreadable arial-font-faced webpage and copy it into Star-office.And the instructions are timeconsuming...at least for someone who justs want to surf the web after this whole ordeal. All this hassle just to be able to read information from the manufacturers website. By no means take this as Linux-bashing. I love the system and enjoy learning all it quirks. The moral of my story is: Sometimes pretty colors and good-looking fonts make computing a whole lot easier. smiles And don't call me Judy! --- civileme [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mandrake is already rejected by many who like to think of themselves as l33t, but I don't believe we have lost that much of the power of linux. The point is this; we believe that a system can be powerful, flexible, and user-friendly. The power and flexibility are built-in for linux so much of our work is on user-friendliness. We therefore welcome input on it. We don't happen to believe that Microsoft has necessarily found the best solution to any one problem associated with use. (Who would intuit that you press the Start key to shut down?) It is a major force because many people are familiar with it, but the style it provides is not necessarily the best. We may have no better idea what is intuitive and what is not than they do, so that is where the folks here can help us. Think carefully, when confused, and note the steps you take to do things with your computer. We know we're producing a counter-intuitive interface when a lot of folks are reporting errors we cannot reproduce. This happens frequently with software manager right now. If people would take notes of a session they had with software manager, we would be able to see where their intuition leads them (we are spoiled by being close to its design and implementation, so what we do [wihout thinking much about it] is already trained to a certain procedure) and we would be able to make the software more truly intuitive in its user interface. I hope you get the idea. help us help you, by taking a few notes on your steps, either as you make them (preferable) or when something goes wrong. Microsoft would like you to think theirs is intuitive, and Apple would like you to think it is them instead. But the fact is, no one to my knowledge has done the interfaces with lots of user feedback where the users consciously participated and statistics were used routinely to study the data and come up with something that is close to what people want. The next question of course, is does such a solution exist? Or do we have many that will be considered roughly equally intuitive? I know one way to discover that answer. :-) Civileme = Jennifer Registered Linux User #221463 Yahoo IM: jlynn2k __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
Re: [newbie] A note about user-friendliness
Re. the MS fonts in exe format. I have not tried it, but it seems that unzip on Linux is able to handle exe zip files. What I did was to burn the windows fonts on a CD and install then on all MDK computers using the MDK font installer. Easy to do. Eric Indiogine On Monday 09 July 2001 13:22, jennifer wrote: Perhaps this is off subject and I certainly would not want to start a linux is bad, very very bad war,but it seems to me that in my few short weeks apart of this list, I have seen more questions around things, like fonts, sound cards and video cards. Now, I know hardware support is not Mandrakes fault, but the font thing does sort of blow my mind. Althought it does not *seem* like a usability issue, it has certainly hindered my abilility to solve my own problems. For instance...I want to download the reference manual off of mandrakes website. I visit the page and can't read a thing. Fonts are messed up. So I join a mailing list that gives me advice on how to fix my fonts. (xfree86 file) Great, that helps, but I still can't see windows fonts. (or mandrakes webpage) Mailing list advice: Import windows fonts. But I can't do that, I don't have windows installed on the same machine. Mailing list advice: I get links to websites to download Font files. Can you guess what happenes next? They files are all executable or in windows format And don't tell me to run WiNE! I can't even download a manual to tell me what WINE is!!! My fonts are still not perfect. Ans what really gets me is that the Mandrake web-developers created half their site in the unreadable-by-linux-Arial font face I did finally find instructions on the mandrake website on how to rememdy this problem. But I had to copy the text from the unreadable arial-font-faced webpage and copy it into Star-office.And the instructions are timeconsuming...at least for someone who justs want to surf the web after this whole ordeal. All this hassle just to be able to read information from the manufacturers website. By no means take this as Linux-bashing. I love the system and enjoy learning all it quirks. The moral of my story is: Sometimes pretty colors and good-looking fonts make computing a whole lot easier. smiles And don't call me Judy! --- civileme [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mandrake is already rejected by many who like to think of themselves as l33t, but I don't believe we have lost that much of the power of linux. The point is this; we believe that a system can be powerful, flexible, and user-friendly. The power and flexibility are built-in for linux so much of our work is on user-friendliness. We therefore welcome input on it. We don't happen to believe that Microsoft has necessarily found the best solution to any one problem associated with use. (Who would intuit that you press the Start key to shut down?) It is a major force because many people are familiar with it, but the style it provides is not necessarily the best. We may have no better idea what is intuitive and what is not than they do, so that is where the folks here can help us. Think carefully, when confused, and note the steps you take to do things with your computer. We know we're producing a counter-intuitive interface when a lot of folks are reporting errors we cannot reproduce. This happens frequently with software manager right now. If people would take notes of a session they had with software manager, we would be able to see where their intuition leads them (we are spoiled by being close to its design and implementation, so what we do [wihout thinking much about it] is already trained to a certain procedure) and we would be able to make the software more truly intuitive in its user interface. I hope you get the idea. help us help you, by taking a few notes on your steps, either as you make them (preferable) or when something goes wrong. Microsoft would like you to think theirs is intuitive, and Apple would like you to think it is them instead. But the fact is, no one to my knowledge has done the interfaces with lots of user feedback where the users consciously participated and statistics were used routinely to study the data and come up with something that is close to what people want. The next question of course, is does such a solution exist? Or do we have many that will be considered roughly equally intuitive? I know one way to discover that answer. :-) Civileme = Jennifer Registered Linux User #221463 Yahoo IM: jlynn2k __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
Re: [newbie] A note about user-friendliness
How is one to tell?? I mention that I recently came across the instructions on how to install the new fonts, but I haven't had the time yet to sit down and really understand them. From the advice I got in other groups, I can simply copy all the true type fonts from my windows machine (burn them if neccesary, I didn't think of doing that)and they were good to go on my linux box. Do you all see what I mean?? This is alot of trouble to go through just to be able to read the type face on the manufacturers website...You would think that Mandrake would cater to their own community and either include the Arial font, or compose their website in linux-readable format --- Randy Kramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Be careful to do this only for fonts which you have the legal right to use on other computers. Randy Kramer Salvatore Enrico Indiogine wrote: What I did was to burn the xxx fonts on a CD and install then on all MDK computers using the MDK font installer. Easy to do. = Jennifer Registered Linux User #221463 Yahoo IM: jlynn2k __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
Re: [newbie] A note about user-friendliness
Do you all see what I mean?? This is alot of trouble to go through just to be able to read the type face on the manufacturers website...You would think that Mandrake would cater to their own community and either include the Arial font, or compose their website in linux-readable format I just took a peek at the HTML on the Mandrake home page, and it specifies Helvetica as the primary font--not Arial. So it _was_ apparently designed for its community as only Linux users favor Helvetica over Arial. (Well, unless Macs have also switched from Chicago to Helvetica.) But I empathize with you! Miark
Re: [newbie] A note about user-friendliness
jennifer wrote: How is one to tell?? Well, as is usually the case, I don't have the whole answer to that. My biggest concern was giving people the idea that it might be OK to copy Windows fonts and then having them get into trouble. My understanding is that many of the Microsoft fonts cannot be used except on a machine that has a valid licensed copy of Windows. (Usually those discussions reference a dual boot setup, but I don't know that Windows would have to be installed, only that a valid licensed copy existed for that machine.) For other fonts, I have little or no knowledge. (Although I think some of the Postscript fonts are proprietary, which is why someone has created a non-proprietary alternative.) Sorry I can't be more helpful. Randy Kramer I mention that I recently came across the instructions on how to install the new fonts, but I haven't had the time yet to sit down and really understand them. From the advice I got in other groups, I can simply copy all the true type fonts from my windows machine (burn them if neccesary, I didn't think of doing that)and they were good to go on my linux box. Do you all see what I mean?? This is alot of trouble to go through just to be able to read the type face on the manufacturers website...You would think that Mandrake would cater to their own community and either include the Arial font, or compose their website in linux-readable format --- Randy Kramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Be careful to do this only for fonts which you have the legal right to use on other computers. Randy Kramer Salvatore Enrico Indiogine wrote: What I did was to burn the xxx fonts on a CD and install then on all MDK computers using the MDK font installer. Easy to do. = Jennifer Registered Linux User #221463 Yahoo IM: jlynn2k __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
Re: [newbie] A note about user-friendliness
LOL, well, I'll take it upon myself and make the decision that although I only have windows installed on one machine I'll install the fonts anyway since my linux box was purchased with a forced installation of windows and license. even if the system is not super-user friendly, the users are Thanks for the help! --- Randy Kramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: jennifer wrote: How is one to tell?? Well, as is usually the case, I don't have the whole answer to that. My biggest concern was giving people the idea that it might be OK to copy Windows fonts and then having them get into trouble. My understanding is that many of the Microsoft fonts cannot be used except on a machine that has a valid licensed copy of Windows. (Usually those discussions reference a dual boot setup, but I don't know that Windows would have to be installed, only that a valid licensed copy existed for that machine.) For other fonts, I have little or no knowledge. (Although I think some of the Postscript fonts are proprietary, which is why someone has created a non-proprietary alternative.) Sorry I can't be more helpful. Randy Kramer I mention that I recently came across the instructions on how to install the new fonts, but I haven't had the time yet to sit down and really understand them. From the advice I got in other groups, I can simply copy all the true type fonts from my windows machine (burn them if neccesary, I didn't think of doing that)and they were good to go on my linux box. Do you all see what I mean?? This is alot of trouble to go through just to be able to read the type face on the manufacturers website...You would think that Mandrake would cater to their own community and either include the Arial font, or compose their website in linux-readable format --- Randy Kramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Be careful to do this only for fonts which you have the legal right to use on other computers. Randy Kramer Salvatore Enrico Indiogine wrote: What I did was to burn the xxx fonts on a CD and install then on all MDK computers using the MDK font installer. Easy to do. = Jennifer Registered Linux User #221463 Yahoo IM: jlynn2k __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ = Jennifer Registered Linux User #221463 Yahoo IM: jlynn2k __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
Re: [newbie] A note about user-friendliness
jennifer wrote: How is one to tell?? I mention that I recently came across the instructions on how to install the new fonts, but I haven't had the time yet to sit down and really understand them. From the advice I got in other groups, I can simply copy all the true type fonts from my windows machine (burn them if neccesary, I didn't think of doing that)and they were good to go on my linux box. Do you all see what I mean?? This is alot of trouble to go through just to be able to read the type face on the manufacturers website...You would think that Mandrake would cater to their own community and either include the Arial font, or compose their website in linux-readable format --- Randy Kramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Be careful to do this only for fonts which you have the legal right to use on other computers. Randy Kramer Salvatore Enrico Indiogine wrote: What I did was to burn the xxx fonts on a CD and install then on all MDK computers using the MDK font installer. Easy to do. = Jennifer Registered Linux User #221463 Yahoo IM: jlynn2k __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ Jennifer, Did you download the update DrakFont? After downloading I selected Configuration-Other-Drakfont. Click on the Get Windows fonts button. Select Install All and click on the Normal button. Give it a moment and you will have a lot of newer fonts. I have been using a combination of Helvetica, Arial including Verdana and it looks good. Roman Registered Linux User #179293 su is not the root of your problem but the start of a new journey
