Windows Notepad Bug Has Reached Legal Drinking Age
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It's been basically impossible to determine line numbers in Notepad for as long as I can remember. The "Edit" menu has a "Go To" item which allows the user to move the cursor to a specific line... but it's almost always grayed out for some reason I'm unable to fathom.
Similarly, the "View" menu has a "Status Bar" item, which (when checked) allows the user to see "row" and "column" numbers at the bottom of the window... but this item is also almost always grayed out, again for no apparent reason.
Perhaps I am missing something that explains the disabling... some disgusting little nuance of security perhaps. But I doubt this is the case, and even if it is The Real WTF is Microsoft's use (even encouragement) of graying things out. I have always advocated leaving the items enabled, and then giving an explanatory message describing the circumstances that prevent its use. This is a design that conveys more information to the user.
The counterargument, of course, is that Users Don't Read Message Boxes. I am guilty of this, but if I ever suspected a message box contained the answer to this problem then I damn well would read it.
Relatedly, I've recently discovered a way around even this failure-to-read, in the form of a CodeProject article ( http://www.codeproject.com/KB/tips/klingon.aspx ), which should be mandatory reading for all Swampy readers.
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When WordWrap is enabled, "Go To" and "Status Bar" are disabled as the wrapped display does not match the lines/columns of the file being edited.
Odd, but there is logic to it.
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@GettinSadda said:
When WordWrap is enabled, "Go To" and "Status Bar" are disabled as the wrapped display does not match the lines/columns of the file being edited.
Odd, but there is logic to it.
Thank you!!
Yes, there is logic to that. I had no idea word wrap was on... it is a WTF in its own right ("duh, I think a newline goes here, der der der"... give me cancer now, God).
I stand by my desire for an explanatory message box. This is a perfect use case for such a design.
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I have two notepad's open at the moment. they've been open for at least 12 hours... one of them had both "goto" and statusbar" enabled, and I can use them... the other does not. I can open, save,new, etc. pretty much anything to the one that has them enabled and they stay enabled... but for some reason I have absolutely no idea why they are available in that instance and not in any other or in any new instances.
Also, I just closed all of them, and now all instances of notepad I start have both of the said options available.
Regarding having menu options disabled, one compromise is to keep the "disabled" look, but still allow the option to be clicked (at which point it displays the message you described) In the case of notepad the usability concern is that the items shouldn't be disabled in the first place, since there is clearly no good reason to do so.
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ahhh... so it's the word wrap option. That makes perfect sense. Without knowing that or stumbling upon it it could be a hair-wracking experience trying to figure it out It doesn't even appear to be documented in the Notepad Help files, either- at hte very least that should be the case.
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@BC_Programmer said:
ahhh... so it's the word wrap option. That makes perfect sense.
It makes some sense. There could certainly be logic in the Notepad code to enable "Status Bar" and "Go To" even with word wrap on, although it would require a bit of coding.
No doubt the programmers at Microsoft are too busy integrating DickWidgets 2.0 into their eleven-layer CODEPP-compliant cloud computing webfrastructure (like that? I just invented it) to give us anything so useful as that.
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Haha,our little flaming friends gets pwn'd after just one post.
Well played, GettinSadda.
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@Mona2000 said:
Haha,our little flaming friends gets pwn'd after just one post.
Well played, GettinSadda.
I think you underestimate how useful his "fix" will be for me. Beyond that, this is a bug in my opinion. There's no real reason these features could not be supported even with word wrap on, with minimal effort. No mention of this limitation is made in the help file. Finally - as I mentioned early on and prominently - the underlying problem is not some penny-ante issue with Notepad. It's the misguided nature of the entire GUI idiom foisted upon us by Microsoft.
So, no, I don't think I got "pwned." I got an answer to my question, which only needed to be asked because of Microsoft's brain-dead GUI standards.
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Apropos of nothing, addressing the subject, it's perfectly legal for 5 year old to drink (alcohol.) In the UK anyway. No idea about the 'States. It's probably 32, or 64 or something.
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@bridget99 said:
I think you underestimate how useful his "fix" will be for me. Beyond that, this is a bug in my opinion. There's no real reason these features could not be supported even with word wrap on, with minimal effort. No mention of this limitation is made in the help file. Finally - as I mentioned early on and prominently - the underlying problem is not some penny-ante issue with Notepad. It's the misguided nature of the entire GUI idiom foisted upon us by Microsoft.
So, no, I don't think I got "pwned." I got an answer to my question, which only needed to be asked because of Microsoft's brain-dead GUI standards.
I know, it hurts. :P
Better luck next time. :)
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@bridget99 said:
It's been basically impossible to determine line numbers in Notepad for as long as I can remember. The "Edit" menu has a "Go To" item which allows the user to move the cursor to a specific line... but it's almost always grayed out for some reason I'm unable to fathom.
Similarly, the "View" menu has a "Status Bar" item, which (when checked) allows the user to see "row" and "column" numbers at the bottom of the window... but this item is also almost always grayed out, again for no apparent reason.
Perhaps I am missing something that explains the disabling... some disgusting little nuance of security perhaps. But I doubt this is the case, and even if it is The Real WTF is Microsoft's use (even encouragement) of graying things out. I have always advocated leaving the items enabled, and then giving an explanatory message describing the circumstances that prevent its use. This is a design that conveys more information to the user.
The counterargument, of course, is that Users Don't Read Message Boxes. I am guilty of this, but if I ever suspected a message box contained the answer to this problem then I damn well would read it.
Relatedly, I've recently discovered a way around even this failure-to-read, in the form of a CodeProject article ( http://www.codeproject.com/KB/tips/klingon.aspx ), which should be mandatory reading for all Swampy readers.
TRWTF is using Notepad...
Seriously, try Notepad++ or Notepad2.
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@jchannell said:
TRWTF is using Notepad...
Seriously, try Notepad++ or Notepad2.
I do not have the luxury of configuring a single workstation to my liking and then using it exclusively. The nature of my job forces me to deal with an out-of-the box setup. I spend much time rebuilding and setting up clusters of computers for a distributed system. On my own personal computer, I run Windows 98 (very responsive on modern hardware) with Cygwin as a buffer between me and Microsoft.
Professionally, on the other hand, I'm typically dealing with a fresh install of Windows XP Embedded. So, out-of-the box functionality matters to me. Default settings matter. Notepad, MSPaint, CMD.EXE, FTP.EXE and IE6 matter to me because that's typically all I get. Now, I do not really do much development using this setup, but I damn sure do things that require me to open text files and determine exact line numbers.
I have tried to explain this at this site before, and I get zero sympathy. "Oh, you knuckle-dragging fool; just install TardWorks 9.0 and all your problems will be solved." But that's not practical... I've already got a long list of things I have to do to each fresh system I deal with (e.g. disabling font-smudging, GUI animation, "simple" file sharing, and file-extension hiding). I can't install TardWorks 9.0, or IE8, or Firefox, or Notepad++ on every one of these systems, at least not consistently.
I don't think I'm alone in this respect. I bet there are plenty of people out there who have to deal with a base install, and really, really would like to (for example) be able to browse the web without getting chewed out about their browser, be able to see line numbers in Notepad and actually see @#$@=-ing file extensions, etc. That is, there are plenty of people who want Windows to behave decently without a bunch of tweaking, third-party tools, etc.
This is not unreasonable, and there is a WTF here- probably several. First, graying things out without context is a bad GUI idiom which Microsoft has foisted upon us. There is a better alternative - informative message boxes which use a newly discovered technique to force user attention ( http://www.codeproject.com/KB/tips/klingon.aspx ). Second, it's a WTF that (given as much time as they've had) Microsoft has not simply made line-counting work in spite of word-wrap. They damn sure have coded a bunch of other crap in the mean time.
The whole attitude of this site nauseates me. It is so insipdly conformist. "Oh! Ha ha! Someone put NaN for my ZIP code" is a five-star, front-page item while The Real WTFs of the computer world are taken for granted. I hereby refuse to submit to this stifling orthodoxy.
No doubt this post will be reviled as Slashdot-worthy Microsoft bashing. It's not. There's a cogent argument in here that could be allowed to inform the process of discovering a better way to deal with computers. The Real, Real WTF is that computer people are by and large such a collection of sexually frustrated arseholes that the mere thought of giving an inch in an argument makes them fear for their manhood.
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Whoa, man. I'm not trying to insult or bash or mock or anything. It IS a shame that there's not a decent text editor installed by default.
That said, you could possibly alleviate your headaches using portable versions of the aforementioned tools on a thumb drive (assuming that you're not locked out of running apps in such a manner). No need to install on each and every machine...
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@jchannell said:
Whoa, man. I'm not trying to insult or bash or mock or anything. It IS a shame that there's not a decent text editor installed by default.
That said, you could possibly alleviate your headaches using portable versions of the aforementioned tools on a thumb drive (assuming that you're not locked out of running apps in such a manner). No need to install on each and every machine...
No problem. Any ire at you was misdirected, and I apologize. Your advice is logical, although there are some issues with USB support on these computers that make things a bit more difficult than you might imagine. That situation is a WTF in its own right.
The legitimate target of my "bile" is the coterie of haters that seems to have formed around me here. I try to engage in meaningful discourse, but almost 100% of the regulars here dismiss anything I post out-of-hand.
I hope you see that I've raised legitimate issues here. Note, too, that my post was quickly followed by the assertion that I got "pwned." That wasn't justified.
To be sure, my posts after that were understandably couched in some "scar tissue." But this has built up in response to people like Mona2000, whose 4 posts have exclusively been lame, quasi-memetic responses to my own posts. Quite likely, this is a sock puppet for some "regular" here who doesn't want to stoop to my supposedly low level. Mona2000's combination of high background knowledge, low post count, and strong personally-directed opinion betrays this fact, although I'm too generous to complain to the authorities.
I have struggled to understand this phenomenon. First, I think there's some embarassment on the part of certain regulars re. Hurricane Katrina. People here seem to feel free to make cute little jokes about the storm, under the assumption that its victims are a bunch of ne'er-do-well minorities who probably don't even have Internet access.
I've called several posters on this; believe it or not, there are people in New Orleans who work damn hard and take justifiable offense at the assumption that we're a bunch of handout-seeking human punchlines. I lived through that storm, I've probably got PTSD as a result, and I'll let everyone know just as soon as I get handout #1.
But, as I hinted in my last post, programmers - at least the ones here - seem incapable of a simple mea culpa. Instead, they react with anger at the person who called them on their offensive remarks.
Basically, I'm the black man whom they didn't see when they made their racist joke. They ought to apologize. Face-to-face, they no doubt would apologize, and we'd both grow as a result. It's only the anonymity of the Internet that (they hope) allows them to continue behaving like asses. A simple "I'm sorry; I hope you're OK" would have been more appropriate.
Second, I think that the regulars here have a very narrow vision for this site, to which I refuse to hew. These regulars will not consider the possibility that anything conventional, long-standing or widely accepted might be a WTF. In short, it is a point of almost universal agreement here that The Emperor is in fact clothed in Robes of Finest Silk.
These regulars do not want to see any evidence that a widely-accepted GUI standard might actually be a WTF, or that Microsoft makes a habit of ignoring high-impact bugs for 15+ years. They would much prefer Yet Another Mailing to ZIPCode "NaN" or maybe "Save a total of <FONT size=3>0.0£." </FONT>Ugh.
I make no apologies for my view that there are some widely-held assumptions that are in fact WTFs. The way GUI objects are grayed out, and the treatment of message boxes by existing APIs and guidelines, are prominent examples. The petty, conventional WTFs around which this site seems to be built are the "bread and circuses" that the perpetrators of these large-scale WTFs use to prop up their status quo. Eventually, programmers will look back at this site as a laughable part of the barber/surgeon era of software development.
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That's why I post selectively, disregard the regulars, and have a laugh at the stories.
The way I see it, there's no sense in getting worked up about what people think or say. That's why I always keep this handy, as a reminder that sometimes people are just plain assholes.
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@jchannell said:
That's why I post selectively, disregard the regulars, and have a laugh at the stories.
The way I see it, there's no sense in getting worked up about what people think or say. That's why I always keep this handy, as a reminder that sometimes people are just plain assholes.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.
"I asked for a critique of my art / writing and I got it." Ouch... even I'm not dumb enough to do that!
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ironic that my post got deleted by moderators for being "obvious flame"
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@Helix said:
ironic that my post got deleted by moderators for being "obvious flame"
This arrived in my inbox as the following:
ironic that my post got deleted by moderators for being " Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}Obvious flame"
WTF, did you copy/paste that style from Word or something?
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@jchannell said:
WTF, did you copy/paste that style from Word or something?
Aye, that's usually the cause.
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@Lingerance said:
@jchannell said:
WTF, did you copy/paste that style from Word or something?
Aye, that's usually the cause.*facepalm*
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@jchannell said:
@Lingerance said:
@jchannell said:
WTF, did you copy/paste that style from Word or something?
Aye, that's usually the cause.*facepalm*
Outlook actually - i got another email from lingerance to say that that my original post was "no benefit to the thread or it's discussion" but also states that that is not ironic.
Funny that as i am not sure what the rest of the thread has to do with notepad or the OP ability to understand MS implementation of WW in Notepad and so on and end up ranting about how computer users blah blah dailyWTF blah blah blah NaN and so on.
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@Helix said:
Which is still correct. Your original post (that got deleted) was a complete flame, provided nothing for discussion, and had no reply posts significant enough to keep.Outlook actually - i got another email from lingerance to say that that my original post was "no benefit to the thread or it's discussion" but also states that that is not ironic.
@Helix said:Funny that as i am not sure what the rest of the thread has to do with notepad or the OP ability to understand MS implementation of WW in Notepad and so on and end up ranting about how computer users blah blah dailyWTF blah blah blah NaN and so on.
Aye, it's still OT, but as far as I can tell there is no flaming (save Mona2000's posts), so there's no reason to actually actively do something about it.
Public only because someone seems to want it to be
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@bridget99 said:
Yes, there is logic to that. I had no idea word wrap was on... it is a WTF in its own right
Perhaps the real wtf is that you've had 20 years to figure this out and still couldn't ;)
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@bridget99 said:
On my own personal computer, I run Windows 98 (very responsive on modern hardware) with Cygwin as a buffer between me and Microsoft.
BSOD much? XP, on the other hand, is rock-solid and nearly as fast on today's hardware. (Both claims nullified if you install lots of startup items, buggy drivers or rubbish addons.)
@bridget99 said:
But that's not practical... I've already got a long list of things I have to do to each fresh system I deal with (e.g. disabling font-smudging, GUI animation, "simple" file sharing, and file-extension hiding).
Then make a custom XP disc with nLite and set all those by default.
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@joemck said:
@bridget99 said:
Because reinstalling every computer you have to handle is completely feasible.But that's not practical... I've already got a long list of things I have to do to each fresh system I deal with (e.g. disabling font-smudging, GUI animation, "simple" file sharing, and file-extension hiding).
Then make a custom XP disc with nLite and set all those by default.
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Mac OS had disabled menu items long before windows came around.
I'm not sure I like the KBC idea at all. It seems workable at first, but imagine a data entry application where the user has to acknowledge a large number of dialogs during the day. tasked with the inevitable frustration, they will do what anybody else does- find a workaround. Maybe keep the "confirmation" text on the clipboard, or use a macro program to automatically dismiss the box. I mean, if the user works there for three years and has to dismiss the same exact confirmation dialog using a contorted method of entering a "confirmation" text message 40 times in an hour, chances are they will consider it simply a nuisance- the message has never helped them.
And of course, with the macro anything the messagebox <could> bring is now redundant anyway. Of course there are "workarounds" against the user automation, but it doesn't address the original problem. The message described in the article essentially says to "make sure that there is nothing that will be overwritten". Consider if Windows Explorer said, every single time you copied a file "ATTENTION! If a file exists in the destination folder with the same name it will be overwritten!" Nonsense- the program can determine if anything wil lbe overwritten.
If nothing will be overwritten, then why "warn" about something that isn't going to happen? If something will, then warn the user. Since the user who hasn't had problems will not be used to seeing a message during this task, they will be far more likely to read it then in the case where there was a messagebox 40 times an hour.
Regarding disabled menu items; the argument against them makes sense for more complicated functions,but breaks down at least as much as the "enforced messagebox" idea. Consider something simple: the "Undo" Function on many programs.
If you open an edit menu, and Undo is grayed out, do you need a reason? No. It's obvious- there is nothing to undo. Is this really bad design? Is it not better for somebody to see that "oh, I can't undo" when they open the edit menu, or should they have tp actually click the menu option only to be greeted with something like "There is nothing on the Undo stack. In order to undo, do something that can be undone, then undo it." (alright I'm exaggerating). Also, many options, such as the Cut/Copy/Paste commands have a number of requirements to be usable; For example, most programs disable the "paste" command if there is nothing on the clipboard that they can read. for example you can copy text to the clipboard, but if you open, for example, Paint Shop Pro's Edit Menu, the "Paste" commands are still disabled, since it cannot paste text. having the option disabled sends the clear message "you cannot paste". It doesn't take long to discover the reason is because you can only paste images- and would it really be more "user-friendly" to say "the clipboard does not contain any clipboard data in a supported Image format" - the additional problem with that message is it almost sounds like there might be an image but it's corrupted.
Lastly, we have the issue of consistency. If you do it for one option, you should do it for all of them- so you should either allow items to be disabled or disable no items at all. This means that even the simple menu options that have a clear and concise meaning for being disabled will be available at all times, such as Undo and Redo and so forth, and they will all display a messagebox if they are not available.
Also, if we do this with menus, should we not do this with other controls? With textboxes don't disable them! instead wait for the user to try to type text and then say why they cannot type text. Don't disable the unavailable button, instead complain when the user clicks it. Media players should NEVER disable their play/pause/stop buttons based on state, instead when you click play when you are already playing, it should state the readily obvious reason you cannot press play "the play function is not available during playback. Type "confirm" in lowercase in the box below if you understand." and stop should say "CAUTION: stopping playback while playback is stopped may not stop playback as there is no playback to stop. If you understand, type 'pUrPle'(case-sensitive) in the box below."
basically... programs should try to "parent" you in how to use them, but they shouldn't have to adopt you.
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The disabled menu system would be better if there were tooltips explaining why the menu item is disabled.@BC_Programmer said:
imagine a data entry application where the user has to acknowledge a large number of dialogs during the day
I'd have to say the application itself is a WTF then. Confirmation dialogues should be rare, not common.
Other than that, good read.
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@bridget99 said:
There is a better alternative - informative message boxes which use a newly discovered technique to force user attention ( http://www.codeproject.com/KB/tips/klingon.aspx ).
I seriously hope you're being ironic here. This has to be the single most idiotic idea of GUI design I've read in the last five years. This box just smells of arrogant developers who know that all other messages are unimportant but of course know just this message is really really REALLY so important they must force their users to read it because for some mysterious reason they keep skipping it. I will bet it would take less than a month until enough devs have used those messages for the very same pointless questions we have now and anothermonth until all users have adapted. And then we are back to the very same situation we have now, instead instead of a single click we now have to type in a word.
As for the problem in the original post, I agree that it is bad practice to just gray out an item without any indication why. However, I think an ordinary message box would be just fine here, since this is a fundamentally different problem than the "are you sure you want to overwrite the backup" problem. The latter has two buttons, labeled "Yes" and "No". This means it is a question the user has to answer and which will trigger an action. In contrast, the former would be a simple notification, followed by nothing. And if he clicked an option often enough and only got some kind of message, I think even the dumbest user will eventually start to wonder what that box is saying he keeps clicking away.
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I would think any program that has enough use of messageboxes to justify a "redesign" of the way the messagebox works to try to force people to read them as being a WTF. Which makes the "KBC" article simply a demonstration of a solution to a problem that shouldn't exist to begin with.
My personal solution to the disabled "issue" is to have a statusbar message appear briefly (about 10 seconds) explaining either the function itself or why it's disabled. For things like Undo/Redo I don't bother with that- it would feel like I'm patronizing the user by stating the obvious- the fact it's disabled says pretty clearly that you cannot undo and the obvious reason is because there is nothing to undo.
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Am I the only one whose eyes were immediately drawn to the uppercase UNDERSTOOD in the KBC example, thus completely skipping the rest of the dialog?
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Nope, that happened to me as well- which highlights the fact that the user, never really cares what a messagebox has to say- they just want to get rid of it. They won't read the actual message, they will skim it looking for the instructions on how to get rid of the bloody thing, which apparently requires a skill-testing question. Just because the method of getting rid of the dialog is more "clever" doesn't solve the problem that the dialog shouldn't exist to begin with. The answer to "people are ignoring and dismissing dialogs without reading them" is not "make them harder to dismiss" but rather to change it into something they WILL read. The first step is to have it be relevant to what they are doing- my main gripe here is applications that refuse to do extra work. The articles "example" program tells the user to "check to make sure nothing will be overwritten". But- why can't the program do that? Surely developer time is better spent adding some code to check to make sure nothing will be overwritten and only show a dialog if there WILL be something overwritten rather then make the dialog that this program always shows harder to close. Another issue is the obvious chain of events this is part of.
issue: users are closing are dialogs without reading them.
Solution: make dialogs harder to close.
issue: users are copying the passphrase "UNDERSTOOD" and using a quick Ctrl-V and enter to dismiss the dialog without reading it
Solution: add more passphrases that will be selected at random from the database.
...
Anyway I'm kind of repeating myself now, but the issue here is that the problem being addressed is that users are dismissing dialogs. What they should be doing is asking why the users are dismissing them- it's a symptom of the issue, not the issue itself.
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@bridget99 said:
Basically, I'm the black man whom they didn't see when they made their racist joke.
Your avatar doesn't look anything like you. How about uploading a picture of yourself so that everyone will know who they are chatting with?
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@AndyCanfield said:
@bridget99 said:
Basically, I'm the black man whom they didn't see when they made their racist joke.
Your avatar doesn't look anything like you. How about uploading a picture of yourself so that everyone will know who they are chatting with?
Hey baby, what are you wearing? :P
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@BC_Programmer said:
Mac OS had disabled menu items long before windows came around.
Pretty much what I was going to say. Back then, the average user could be expected to RTFM to find out why a menu item is disabled... provided the documentation is decent enough. So it's just an older design that is less appropriate today (because the average user can't ben arsed to read a document that tells you how to use the goddamn product properly).
And as far as Notepad is concerned, it's just a not-so-thick wrapper around Windows' "EDIT" window class carried from the now 25-year-old Windows 1.0. I'm not a win32 guru, but the EDIT control doesn't provide much functionality, and most importantly, it probably can't accurately keep track of line numbers when S_HSCROLL isn't set.
Why Notepad hasn't been rewritten into a more useful, actual, code-oriented text editor, that I don't have a single clue (it has been maintained, though). My best guess would be that code editors are specialized tools the average user doesn't need... after all I don't remember Mac OS X having a GUI-based code editor out of the box either.
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@AndyCanfield said:
Might I suggest this avatar:@bridget99 said:
Basically, I'm the black man whom they didn't see when they made their racist joke.
Your avatar doesn't look anything like you. How about uploading a picture of yourself so that everyone will know who they are chatting with?
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@Dr Frankenstein said:
Why Notepad hasn't been rewritten into a more useful, actual, code-oriented text editor, that I don't have a single clue (it has been maintained, though).
Gee, let me think, could it be because Microsoft already has one of those? Or maybe because they're marketing their operating system to end users, not programmers? If you want a code editor, get a code editor. You can do it. I believe in you.
Interestingly, Raymond has also written specifically about the relationship between the Word Wrap and Go To/Status Bar commands, and having too many dialog boxes. So basically this thread, and several of the replies in it, are TRWTF.
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@Aaron said:
So basically this thread, and several of the replies in it, are TRWTF.
Except the OT ones, they were hilarious.
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@bridget99 said:
I have always advocated leaving the items enabled, and then giving an explanatory message describing the circumstances that prevent its use. This is a design that conveys more information to the user.
The counterargument, of course, is that Users Don't Read Message Boxes. I am guilty of this, but if I ever suspected a message box contained the answer to this problem then I damn well would read it.
Relatedly, I've recently discovered a way around even this failure-to-read, in the form of a CodeProject article ( http://www.codeproject.com/KB/tips/klingon.aspx ), which should be mandatory reading for all Swampy readers.
This is seriously the most terrible idea I've ever heard.
1. Notepad only has four settings: Page Setup, WordWrap, Font, and Status Bar. It's poorly documented. Live with it.
2. If I wanted to use Go To, and it let me select it, and it gave me a giant popup saying "You can't use it because one of your four settings is wrong blah blah", [ital]and[/ital] it required me to type "UNDERSTOOD" to get rid of the damn box, I sure as hell wouldn't use Notepad any more.
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Bah, Notepad sucks. Period, end of discussion. No improvements short of replacing the damn thing will suffice.
I'm unsubscribing this thread now, so if anyone needs me, I'll be... elsewhere.
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@jchannell said:
Bah, Notepad sucks. Period, end of discussion. No improvements short of replacing the damn thing will suffice.
Well, it's better than SSDS.
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@derula said:
Well, it's better than SSDS.
yea, you just hit Ctrl+F and type your keyword at prompt #1.
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@derula said:
Well, it's better than SSDS.
But then, so is ebola.
p.s. thanks for the UserScripts link, now I don't have to remember what to type when selecting that tag.
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The Real WTF is using Microsoft's Notepad when there are infinitely superior alternatives out there, like Notepad++, that actually DO know how to properly display line numbers. (and a million other features useful for editing text documents of any kind)
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@forbjok said:
The Real WTF is using Microsoft's Notepad when there are infinitely superior alternatives out there, like Notepad++, that actually DO know how to properly display line numbers. (and a million other features useful for editing text documents of any kind)
I tried Notepad++ once. I stopped using it because it had wrong menus. Menus. The UI widget perfected by 1986... somehow they screwed up their implementation... how in the WORLD do you screw up menus?!
Anyway, it's open source, so I guess expecting it to have a decent GUI is the real WTF. But I still would like people to mention, "oh BTW? somehow he screwed up MENUS!!!" when they recommend it.
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@dhromed said:
@blakeyrat said:
it had wrong menus.
Howcome?
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=1865630&group_id=95717&atid=612382
It was finally resolved with "making menu more compacted", leading me to believe that the developer still doesn't *get* that the menu code is wrong. Removing items is great, it prevents the bug from showing up, but the bug is still there!
Also notice how lame the first reply was. "Remove languages you don't want." That's my typical open source bug response, instead of reading and understanding the bug, I get a lame workaround.
A bigger issue for me is, how the hell do you screw up menus in the first place?! Did he write his own menuing code from scratch? If so... did he bother to test it against existing implementations? And why would he do that, anyway? It boggles the mind.
This bug is still open too: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=1865624&group_id=95717&atid=612382
When I filed it, Vista was still pretty new and the bug was excusable. Now? Windows 7 is out, and it's still not fixed. Ugh.
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@The_Assimilator said:
p.s. thanks for the UserScripts link, now I don't have to remember what to type when selecting that tag.
That's what you get for writing verbose descriptions. Nothing but ignorance. But you won't stop me on my mandatory mission of cloud balancing!
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@bridget99 said:
@Mona2000 said:
Haha,our little flaming friends gets pwn'd after just one post.
Well played, GettinSadda.
I think you underestimate how useful his "fix" will be for me. Beyond that, this is a bug in my opinion. There's no real reason these features could not be supported even with word wrap on, with minimal effort. No mention of this limitation is made in the help file. Finally - as I mentioned early on and prominently - the underlying problem is not some penny-ante issue with Notepad. It's the misguided nature of the entire GUI idiom foisted upon us by Microsoft.
So, no, I don't think I got "pwned." I got an answer to my question, which only needed to be asked because of Microsoft's brain-dead GUI standards.
Yes, you got pwned.
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The only WTF-ery in Notepad is Weenix Lunies who think it's anything other than what it is. It's not a general-purpose programmers (or any other kind of) editor, it's meant for quickly double-clicking on text files and making small changes. If you want to use vi (and may the lord have mercy on your soul) there are versions of it available for Windows.
Sheesh, next thing is we'll have people flaming Calc because it doesn't have a built-in scripting language.
LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You
