Subject: Re: Options dialog stable?
From: Logan Hall (warrior514@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Wed Feb 23 2000 - 01:19:18 CST
Paul Robichaux wrote:
> [nb. I've been lurking and following the Mac port discussion. I'm
> eager to start cutting some Mac code, but until the Leonards, Bryans,
> and Huberts get something that will launch without crashing I'll
> stick with my 'real' work. ]
>
> Paul Rohr opined:
> >This may be perverse, but think of every entry in the Options dialog as
> >dirty laundry related to an unfinished feature which needs a workaround. If
> >you don't believe me, take a look at some other piece of software and ask
> >yourself why each option is there.
>
> For all the complaining open source folk do about Microsoft's
> products, IMHO this is one area they get right. I'll stipulate that
> points 2 and 4 are definitely true (and 4, in particular, is a hard
> one to handle), but choices about functionality are often a Good
> Thing.
>
> Easy case in MS Word: do you want the grammar and spelling checkers
> to work in near-real-time, indicating errors as they're spotted, or
> in batch mode? You can make design arguments pro and con until you're
> blue in the face, but the fact comes down to the end user's
> /preference/. I won't argue that the options are always this
> clear-cut (e.g. does anyone /want/ to use "fast save" mode?)
>
> > - Does it really help to have multiple simultaneous preference schemes?
>
> Absolutely. If you have a shared piece of equipment, you need to
> support multiple preference sets. This is one of the things that MS
> has gotten surprisingly good at providing in Windows 2000.
Hmm.. I didn't think of the shared piece of equiptment case. But in most cases
any more arn't the users prefrences saved in some way to their own account?
Meaning that when you logout and someone else log's in thier prefrences would be
put in place by the os. If the machine is a shared piece of equipment that is
not multi-user then this could be a needed feature.
The place i see the multiple user preference schemes working the best is for
people who need to write many types of documents. For instance people who write
their papers for english using a certain font and spaceing and other settings,
but write their letters and other documents with diffrent settings. They could
define diffrent preference schemes so that they just have to switch schemes to
get their diffrent settings.
The current way the options are implemented this realy doesn't play a role (no
default font, font size, etc. in the preferences), but later on this might be a
consideration.
>
>
> >Does that make sense?
> >
>
> Yes.
>
> Back to lurking,
> -the other Paul
> --
> Paul Robichaux, MCSE | paul@robichaux.net | <http://www.robichaux.net>
> Robichaux & Associates: programming, writing, teaching, consulting
> See http://www.exchangefaq.org for all your Exchange questions!
------ Logan Hall
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