Re: two or more lines of icons
On 14 Oct 2003, stephen(a)xemacs.org wrote:
Uwe> On 14 Oct 2003, galibert(a)pobox.com wrote:
Uwe> Why disasters?
[snip]
Windows applications, on the other hand, are designed to have a very
steep learning curve that bottoms out immediately, like toasters,
blenders, and other modern kitchen appliances. My usual experience
with a Windows program is that it has tons of buttons, none of which
does quite what I want it to. (Freecell and Minesweeper are
exceptions. Minesweeper is especially nice since it can be
configured to have hundreds of buttons, all of which are essential
to its use. :)
Well, I agree with most what you have said, when I started to use
computers most of them did even had a graphical interface
[snip]
Emacsen have historically not been for occasional users; they appeal
to users who use them as their primary application, and even their
"operating environment".
So I wouldn't call it a "UI disaster" (150 million AOL users can't
all be 100% wrong ;-), but I question whether we're doing either the
existing users or potential users a big favor by targeting the
number of buttons in the default configuration of XEmacs. On a
1024x768 display, it should easily be possible to get 20 buttons in
the toolbar on a reasonably-sized frame.
Well (X)emacs is not only very customizable but also has features
which to my knowledge no other editor processes. For example
for editing scientific documents the combination:
auctex+reftex+x-symbols+preview-latex
has not surpassed by any free or non free application.
It is however surprising to see, that most users do not want even to
consider using it, since it has no user friendly interface such as
icons. I feel the whole affair as a huge waste of energy in some
sense, great effort, but then not the amount of users one would
expect.
Of course if, one hand the implementation of such a feature would be a
very difficult task, realized may be in the release 33, and on the
other side (X)emacs consider itself as a product written by hackers
for hackers, then let's forget it.
[snip]
No, it has nothing to do with instability of the application.
Excessive iconization has, however, been known to drive Emacs
developers into a certain degree of mental instability.
This of course is the last thing we want.