19 Feb
2013
19 Feb
'13
9 a.m.
On 18/02/13 10:51, david wrote:
One thing I noticed just a few days ago while updating
my wife's netbook (it
runs Ubuntu 12.04LTS). I mistyped a CLI command, and Ubuntu obligingly came up
with a list of suggestions for what I was looking for.
yes ... that kind of search if there is an error is nice ... what shell/terminal
is that? anything using readline under the covers gives tab-completion ... not
quite that but it can still save a lot of typing, and avoid some typos to.
Oh, I do business using words. And graphics. And sound. But remembering specific
words to the degree of detail needed by many command line apps (how many people
even remember all of mplayer's command line options, let alone their
suboptions?) Especially when it's not something I do that often.
Certainly big, very flexible programs have big, complicated manpages with lots
of options. Here an interface or a script offering only the few common use-cases
is much easier to use if you don't need the whole program, hence the many
mplayer front ends to choose from.
I personally find trying to work out how to use a big, very flexible menu and
tab interface (like VLC's for example) much more annoying than finding the
options in a manpage. Then if the task is something I'll do again I'll add
another line to a text file on the subject, or perhaps save a one-line script,
or even put in my desktop panel or keyboard shortcuts if it is a task I repeat a
lot. For me its easier to keep a line of text on file than remember a whole swag
of settings nested in tabs and menus, but everyone works differently.
Simon