Subject: Re: new --to command line option
From: Paul Rohr (paul@abisource.com)
Date: Wed Jan 26 2000 - 16:22:05 CST
At 11:20 AM 1/26/00 -0600, sam th wrote:
>I have to disagree here. I think that we should definitely give useres
>the option of file conversion and opening the regular program at the same
>time.
Is there a bad outcome if we *don't* allow this kind of flexibility? After
all, they can just run it twice -- once to convert and once to see stuff.
If you can think of a realistic use case -- for example, convert these files
and let me see them -- then we could always *add* another command-line
option to invoke this sort of "interactive conversion".
>I admit to no seeing a use for it right off the bat, but giving our
>users maximum flexibility whenever possible is something we should strive
>for.
Generality is good, but it's not an absolute good. Good UI design tries to
optimize heavily for the most common case, while still permitting other
tasks to get done somehow. The gyrations you have to go through should
scale in proportion to how frequently that task is performed.
Thus, in this case, we have two potential command-line UIs:
command default behavior
------- ----------------
abiword foo.doc -to abw [-quiet | -batch] display converted documents
abiword foo.doc -to abw [-show | -verbose] pure batch mode, no graphics
Which default is more common behavior? I'd tend to assume that the second
is, by a long shot. Then again, I don't do much file conversion work, so I
may not be the best person to ask.
Paul
PS: What's the error-handling for this look like in batch mode? Only save
the new file if it can be successfully converted, and it doesn't replace any
existing files? How is the failure reported?
What about in interactive mode? Should it just do the conversion and *not*
save the results until you've looked at them?
Just being pesky. ;-)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Wed Jan 26 2000 - 16:16:48 CST