Microsoft wooden table



  •  Ok, so it doesn't actually involve a wooden table, but it's still a huge WTF.
     



  • Yeah, that isn't a great way, but AFAIK the only other good way to do this is at the command prompt.

    dir > dir.txt

    It would be nice if there was some better way in explorer, but not sure it is a huge WTF... not like they are asking you to take a picture of the screen or something...



  • just use any screen capture utility like Paint Shop Pro has and be done with it.



  • @pitchingchris said:

    just use any screen capture utility like Paint Shop Pro has and be done with it.

    What was the benefit of this over alt+prntscrn again?



  • @Mal1024 said:

     Ok, so it doesn't actually involve a wooden table, but it's still a huge WTF.
     

    I can't find the post, but this reminds me of the government contractor who took a screen shot of each directory, put it in photoshop and cropped the directory contents, then used OCR to get the text.  He must have read this documentation.



  • Was that contractor named Rube Goldberg, by any chance?



  • @Mal1024 said:

     Ok, so it doesn't actually involve a wooden table, but it's still a huge WTF.
     

    Actually a friend of mine uses this to print contents of a cd on the cover and the cd self ..

    looks kinda nice ...
     



  • @Mal1024 said:

     Ok, so it doesn't actually involve a wooden table, but it's still a huge WTF.
     

    It's like getting a code review from someone where they send a screen-shot of their diff in an editor with scrollbars.  Or the other classic of getting a screenshot of a cmd-prompt output...



  • Mac wooden table, too

    I was surprised to see that MacOS doesn't have a better way to print the contents of a directory, either. Of course, it's unix, so you can do in MacOS the same things you can do in any unix or linux: 'ls -l | lpr' or 'ls -l > file.txt' and then print file.txt with an editor. But Mac has so many good GUI ways to do things that I was surprised this just wasn't there. Apparently, to read some of the blogs out there, it's been missing since the first MacOS X and people have been complaining for years.

    There are plenty of freeware utilities to do it for Mac, but no native, out-of-the-box way. Huh.



  • @pacohope said:

    I was surprised to see that MacOS doesn't have a better way to print the contents of a directory, either. Of course, it's unix, so you can do in MacOS the same things you can do in any unix or linux: 'ls -l | lpr' or 'ls -l > file.txt' and then print file.txt with an editor. But Mac has so many good GUI ways to do things that I was surprised this just wasn't there. Apparently, to read some of the blogs out there, it's been missing since the first MacOS X and people have been complaining for years.

    There are plenty of freeware utilities to do it for Mac, but no native, out-of-the-box way. Huh.

    Yeah Windows is the same way. I truly wish there was a little option hidden in the Folder Options for explorer that enabled a 'power user' mode or something. Then MS could take a lot of the suggestions the rest of the community has and work on them there... maybe even make it plug in enabled, and publish everything they have and take community changes. That would be a nice way of making Windows more powerful, allowing them to pretend they care about open source, etc. Maybe even use some of the concepts on the next OS.

    Not that I expect that will ever happen, and it is possible to write your own shell anyway, but it would be nice.



  • @pacohope said:

    I was surprised to see that MacOS doesn't
    have a better way to print the contents of a directory, either. Of
    course, it's unix, so you can do in MacOS the same things you can do in
    any unix or linux: 'ls -l | lpr' or 'ls -l > file.txt' and then
    print file.txt with an editor. But Mac has so many good GUI ways to do
    things that I was surprised this just wasn't there. Apparently, to read
    some of the blogs out there, it's been missing since the first MacOS X
    and people have been complaining for years.

    There are plenty of freeware utilities to do it for Mac, but no native, out-of-the-box way. Huh.



     

    It does have a better way, but it is one of those features that
    you wouldn't be able to find out unless someone told you.  It involves
    putting an icon for the printer on your desktop or dock, then dragging
    the folder to it.



    Here is an article that describes it More Better(tm):



    [url]http://www.thinkmac.net/tutorials/finder/print-finder-directories-mac-tips-daily-294[/url]



  • For once I have to agree MasterPlanSoftware. Theres too much missing in windows thats left out for the sake of the "average" user but would be invaluable to all others. They should be available as power toys...

     

    /me wonders what they suggest for a case when listing does not fit on screen all at once... 



  • The only thing I'm wondering is why you'd want to print the contents of a directory in the first place. The only time I ever had to do that was for school projects, but it was with a special app that computed a checksum of the files so the markers could verify you hadn't changed the code since submission. But even then it was just a matter of calling `checksum . | lpr`.



  • @pitchingchris said:

    just use any screen capture utility like Paint Shop Pro has and be done with it.

    That's great --  if you already have a copy installed or are willing to buy and install a copy.  The typical clueless user doesn't have a copy of PaintShop Pro on his computer and doesn't even know that's what he needs.  And probably won't be too happy when he finds out that he has to spend $50 in order to print out screen captures.

    What was the benefit of this over alt+prntscrn again?

    Alt prntscrn only copies the screen to the clipboard.  Then what do you do with it?  That's the real WTF here.  Windows doesn't come with any decent image manipulation program, so the typical clueless user has to resort to all sorts of Rube Goldberg methods to print out a simple screen shot.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Alt prntscrn only copies the screen to the clipboard.
    Actually, it copies the active window.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Alt prntscrn only copies the screen to the clipboard.  Then what do you do with it?  That's the real WTF here.  Windows doesn't come with any decent image manipulation program, so the typical clueless user has to resort to all sorts of Rube Goldberg methods to print out a simple screen shot.

    That's actually what I use.  Paste from the clipboard into MS Paint (I know).  A few clicks and drags to crop it, and I'm good.  It's not terrible, but it's not great. 



  • @El_Heffe said:

    What was the benefit of this over alt+prntscrn again?

    Alt prntscrn only copies the screen to the clipboard.  Then what do you do with it?  That's the real WTF here.  Windows doesn't come with any decent image manipulation program, so the typical clueless user has to resort to all sorts of Rube Goldberg methods to print out a simple screen shot.

    How would YOU recommend you do this?

    How would you do it in any other OS? The MacOS way above sounds cool, but certainly wasn't something your average user apparently would know.

    Using Windows you have two choices: dir > dir.txt or take a screenshot Using the dir command piped to a text file makes a parseable solution if you were to need it. If not, you can make an image (in the case you just need to show someone a quick example of a directory or something)

    I think that really covers all the bases. Somehow I don't think an average user who is incapable of running dir > dir.txt is going to parsing a text file anyway. With the notable exception of the WTF mentioned above which really was just bad training.

    Yes, it would be cool in explorer to have a neat packaged way to do this, but you are implying everyone else gets it right, and MS doesn't. Then again, you also don't know what alt+prtscrn does and you don't seem to know about mspaint.

     



  • @belgariontheking said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    Alt prntscrn only copies the screen to the clipboard.  Then what do you do with it?  That's the real WTF here.  Windows doesn't come with any decent image manipulation program, so the typical clueless user has to resort to all sorts of Rube Goldberg methods to print out a simple screen shot.

    That's actually what I use.  Paste from the clipboard into MS Paint (I know).  A few clicks and drags to crop it, and I'm good.  It's not terrible, but it's not great. 

    Paint.NET is wonderful for this purpose BTW. It is not as powerful as Photoshop, but has most of the features amateurs need and it is free. It is also pretty light and doesn't take NEARLY as long as photoshop to start. I really hope MS decides to package this with Windows someday.

    Definitely a step up from MSPaint.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @belgariontheking said:
    @El_Heffe said:

    Alt prntscrn only copies the screen to the clipboard.  Then what do you do with it?  That's the real WTF here.  Windows doesn't come with any decent image manipulation program, so the typical clueless user has to resort to all sorts of Rube Goldberg methods to print out a simple screen shot.

    That's actually what I use.  Paste from the clipboard into MS Paint (I know).  A few clicks and drags to crop it, and I'm good.  It's not terrible, but it's not great. 

    Paint.NET is wonderful for this purpose BTW. It is not as powerful as Photoshop, but has most of the features amateurs need and it is free. It is also pretty light and doesn't take NEARLY as long as photoshop to start. I really hope MS decides to package this with Windows someday.

    Definitely a step up from MSPaint.

     

    * Starts GIMP flamewar 



  • @Mal1024 said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    @belgariontheking said:
    @El_Heffe said:

    Alt prntscrn only copies the screen to the clipboard.  Then what do you do with it?  That's the real WTF here.  Windows doesn't come with any decent image manipulation program, so the typical clueless user has to resort to all sorts of Rube Goldberg methods to print out a simple screen shot.

    That's actually what I use.  Paste from the clipboard into MS Paint (I know).  A few clicks and drags to crop it, and I'm good.  It's not terrible, but it's not great. 

    Paint.NET is wonderful for this purpose BTW. It is not as powerful as Photoshop, but has most of the features amateurs need and it is free. It is also pretty light and doesn't take NEARLY as long as photoshop to start. I really hope MS decides to package this with Windows someday.

    Definitely a step up from MSPaint.

    * Starts GIMP flamewar 

    The fact there is another good/better/worse software package doesn't negate the fact that Paint.NET is a good tool for what he was looking for.

     Thanks for the recommendation though, I actually never even thought about GIMP on Windows, and lo and behold it exists. Learned something new today.



  • Wait, you ARE talking about The GIMP right?

    http://home.tu-clausthal.de/~ifjkl/pics/schauspieler/stephen_hibbert.jpg

    Thats what I thought.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    What was the benefit of this over alt+prntscrn again?

    Alt prntscrn only copies the screen to the clipboard.  Then what do you do with it?  That's the real WTF here.  Windows doesn't come with any decent image manipulation program, so the typical clueless user has to resort to all sorts of Rube Goldberg methods to print out a simple screen shot.

    How would YOU recommend you do this?

    How would you do it in any other OS? The MacOS way above sounds cool, but certainly wasn't something your average user apparently would know.

    Using Windows you have two choices: dir > dir.txt or take a screenshot Using the dir command piped to a text file makes a parseable solution if you were to need it. If not, you can make an image (in the case you just need to show someone a quick example of a directory or something)

    I think that really covers all the bases. Somehow I don't think an average user who is incapable of running dir > dir.txt is going to parsing a text file anyway. With the notable exception of the WTF mentioned above which really was just bad training.

    Yes, it would be cool in explorer to have a neat packaged way to do this, but you are implying everyone else gets it right, and MS doesn't. Then again, you also don't know what alt+prtscrn does and you don't seem to know about mspaint.

     

     

    What I don't get is: Surely SOMEONE IN MICROSOFT (just someone) has to know that there is a command line interperetor in windows. And that things like redirection of output and piping is permitted (i would hope so) so they could have just said:

    1 - copy address from address bar

    2 - start > run > cmd.exe

    3 - cd (right-click, paste)

    4 - dir > dir.txt

    5 - notepad dir.txt

    6 - file > print

    And this does not involve using image manipulation.

     

    By god... Take a screenshot and print it in notepad? I gota say that IS creatively stupid. this belongs on the WTF site unlike some OTHER posts about microsoft! (by me)

     

    <metaphor> 

    Its like me wanting to know what a hamburger looks like at McEvil (McDonalds) and they said ok... wait one minute, called a photographer, went to the minimum wage assembler, had him make a burger, took a professional photo of the burger, developed it, came back to me, and said here is the burger, sorry it was too big to fit on the camera so you need to buy adobe photoshop and piece these 5 photos together. Instead of just bringing me one.

     </metaphor>
     


     



  • @dlikhten said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:
    @El_Heffe said:

    What was the benefit of this over alt+prntscrn again?

    Alt prntscrn only copies the screen to the clipboard.  Then what do you do with it?  That's the real WTF here.  Windows doesn't come with any decent image manipulation program, so the typical clueless user has to resort to all sorts of Rube Goldberg methods to print out a simple screen shot.

    How would YOU recommend you do this?

    How would you do it in any other OS? The MacOS way above sounds cool, but certainly wasn't something your average user apparently would know.

    Using Windows you have two choices: dir > dir.txt or take a screenshot Using the dir command piped to a text file makes a parseable solution if you were to need it. If not, you can make an image (in the case you just need to show someone a quick example of a directory or something)

    I think that really covers all the bases. Somehow I don't think an average user who is incapable of running dir > dir.txt is going to parsing a text file anyway. With the notable exception of the WTF mentioned above which really was just bad training.

    Yes, it would be cool in explorer to have a neat packaged way to do this, but you are implying everyone else gets it right, and MS doesn't. Then again, you also don't know what alt+prtscrn does and you don't seem to know about mspaint.

     

     

    What I don't get is: Surely SOMEONE IN MICROSOFT (just someone) has to know that there is a command line interperetor in windows. And that things like redirection of output and piping is permitted (i would hope so) so they could have just said:

    1 - copy address from address bar

    2 - start > run > cmd.exe

    3 - cd (right-click, paste)

    4 - dir > dir.txt

    5 - notepad dir.txt

    6 - file > print

    And this does not involve using image manipulation.

     

    By god... Take a screenshot and print it in notepad? I gota say that IS creatively stupid. this belongs on the WTF site unlike some OTHER posts about microsoft! (by me)
     

    Has it occurred to you that this was an example for common users who just need to send someone a picture of the listing? What 'image manipulation' is involved in pasting a screenshot into MSpaint?

    Microsoft is certainly aware of command redirection, and has documents for those who can use google and who are interested in the command line (news flash: this is not true of many users, and prntscrn is MUCH easier to teach these people): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490982.aspx

    They also offer more advanced advice for people who don't just spend their time complaining in forums:

    That looks about 100x better than your suggestion, and is actually reusable.

     

    Please do some research before making 'creatively stupid' arguments.



  • @dlikhten said:

    <metaphor> 

    Its like me wanting to know what a hamburger looks like at McEvil (McDonalds) and they said ok... wait one minute, called a photographer, went to the minimum wage assembler, had him make a burger, took a professional photo of the burger, developed it, came back to me, and said here is the burger, sorry it was too big to fit on the camera so you need to buy adobe photoshop and piece these 5 photos together. Instead of just bringing me one.

     </metaphor> 

    Amazing, you actually edited your post to make it STUPIDER.

    First, learn the difference between a metaphor and analogy, before trying to make clever posts.
    Second, that would be the WORST analogy I have ever read.



  • @pacohope said:

    I was surprised to see that MacOS doesn't have a better way to print the contents of a directory, either. Of course, it's unix, so you can do in MacOS the same things you can do in any unix or linux: 'ls -l | lpr' or 'ls -l > file.txt' and then print file.txt with an editor. But Mac has so many good GUI ways to do things that I was surprised this just wasn't there...

    Sheesh, WTF? Just select all the files, Edit → Copy and then paste into a text editor. If you're using TextEdit, make sure you've set it to plain text mode, otherwise it just pastes all the icons. You've been able to copy the names of selected files in the Finder for a very long time. OS X added the ability to copy the icons directly, and if you paste the files into a Finder window, it copies the files too. My beef is that OS X doesn't let you cut and paste files like Windows and EPOC permit (only copy and paste), nor can you right-drag :)



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @dlikhten said:

    <metaphor> 

    Its like me wanting to know what a hamburger looks like at McEvil (McDonalds) and they said ok... wait one minute, called a photographer, went to the minimum wage assembler, had him make a burger, took a professional photo of the burger, developed it, came back to me, and said here is the burger, sorry it was too big to fit on the camera so you need to buy adobe photoshop and piece these 5 photos together. Instead of just bringing me one.

     </metaphor> 

    Amazing, you actually edited your post to make it STUPIDER.

    First, learn the difference between a metaphor and analogy, before trying to make clever posts.
    Second, that would be the WORST analogy I have ever read.

    pwnage



  • @dlikhten said:

    1 - copy address from address bar

    2 - start > run > cmd.exe

    3 - cd (right-click, paste)

    4 - dir > dir.txt

    5 - notepad dir.txt

    6 - file > print

    Do you have any idea how many users would end up typing "start > run > cmd.exe" at the command line if they did that?



  • @vt_mruhlin said:

    @dlikhten said:

    1 - copy address from address bar

    2 - start > run > cmd.exe

    3 - cd (right-click, paste)

    4 - dir > dir.txt

    5 - notepad dir.txt

    6 - file > print

    Do you have any idea how many users would end up typing "start > run > cmd.exe" at the command line if they did that?

    Well it is all so simple to the guy who complains he cannot even install Windows of course.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @pacohope said:

    I was surprised to see that MacOS doesn't have a better way to print the contents of a directory, either. Of course, it's unix, so you can do in MacOS the same things you can do in any unix or linux: 'ls -l | lpr' or 'ls -l > file.txt' and then print file.txt with an editor. But Mac has so many good GUI ways to do things that I was surprised this just wasn't there. Apparently, to read some of the blogs out there, it's been missing since the first MacOS X and people have been complaining for years.

    There are plenty of freeware utilities to do it for Mac, but no native, out-of-the-box way. Huh.

    Yeah Windows is the same way. I truly wish there was a little option hidden in the Folder Options for explorer that enabled a 'power user' mode or something. Then MS could take a lot of the suggestions the rest of the community has and work on them there... maybe even make it plug in enabled, and publish everything they have and take community changes. That would be a nice way of making Windows more powerful, allowing them to pretend they care about open source, etc. Maybe even use some of the concepts on the next OS.

    Not that I expect that will ever happen, and it is possible to write your own shell anyway, but it would be nice.

    It already is plugin-enabled, and the APIs for this are already completely documented. This is how things like briefcases and zip folders work.



  • @death said:

    For once I have to agree MasterPlanSoftware. Theres too much missing in windows thats left out for the sake of the "average" user but would be invaluable to all others. They should be available as power toys...

     

    /me wonders what they suggest for a case when listing does not fit on screen all at once... 

    From the original link:

    NOTE: If there are more files or folders than can be displayed in the My Computer or Windows Explorer window (in other words, you must scroll to see all the files or folders), you must scroll to view these files, and then repeat steps 1-4.



  • @Kyanar said:

    @death said:

    For once I have to agree MasterPlanSoftware. Theres too much missing in windows thats left out for the sake of the "average" user but would be invaluable to all others. They should be available as power toys...

     

    /me wonders what they suggest for a case when listing does not fit on screen all at once... 

    From the original link:

    NOTE: If there are more files or folders than can be displayed in the My Computer or Windows Explorer window (in other words, you must scroll to see all the files or folders), you must scroll to view these files, and then repeat steps 1-4.

     

    Ehh, / me tag use is broken for quotes :D. LOL should haver read more carefully...

     

    MasterPlanSoftware, plug the insult hole will ya? Its getting tiresome.



  • @death said:

    @Kyanar said:
    @death said:

    For once I have to agree MasterPlanSoftware. Theres too much missing in windows thats left out for the sake of the "average" user but would be invaluable to all others. They should be available as power toys...

     

    /me wonders what they suggest for a case when listing does not fit on screen all at once... 

    From the original link:

    NOTE: If there are more files or folders than can be displayed in the My Computer or Windows Explorer window (in other words, you must scroll to see all the files or folders), you must scroll to view these files, and then repeat steps 1-4.

     

    Ehh, / me tag use is broken for quotes :D. LOL should haver read more carefully...

     

    MasterPlanSoftware, plug the insult hole will ya? Its getting tiresome.

    Insults?



  • @vt_mruhlin said:

    @dlikhten said:

    1 - copy address from address bar

    2 - start > run > cmd.exe

    3 - cd (right-click, paste)

    4 - dir > dir.txt

    5 - notepad dir.txt

    6 - file > print

    Do you have any idea how many users would end up typing "start > run > cmd.exe" at the command line if they did that?

     

    Actually even dir > lpt0 worked last time I checked. 



  • @Latexxx said:

    @vt_mruhlin said:
    @dlikhten said:

    1 - copy address from address bar

    2 - start > run > cmd.exe

    3 - cd (right-click, paste)

    4 - dir > dir.txt

    5 - notepad dir.txt

    6 - file > print

    Do you have any idea how many users would end up typing "start > run > cmd.exe" at the command line if they did that?

     

    Actually even dir > lpt0 worked last time I checked. 

    That should work. But I have found that when you have various networked printers, and a machine you travel site to site with, you can experience hardships. (you need to configure lpt0 to point to the correct printer, etc)

    Sometimes it is easier to have someone send it to a txt file and then print it from notepad (or whatever). Then you get all your print options, etc. Much easier when instructing someone who may not understand all that.

     


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