What's another word for failure?
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@dkf said:
Finding that keystroke might take several minutes staring through a lot of text that was slightly too small for a normally-sighted person to read at the normal distance of a keyboard from your eyes.
Well I was 10 at the time so I was closer to the keyboard, and more of a hunt and peck typist so I was looking at the keyboard closely anyway. I had remembered quite a few of the shortcuts by the time I finished high school. At which point I used windows based word processors more and more.
WP was so much faster than anything else though. My first experience with dos and wp was on an NEC MultiSpeed: old in 1990, an 8086 based laptop with a reflective LCD monitor (imsmr).
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@Gurth said:
@Maciejasjmj said:
The most basic thing a word processor does, is enable you to write text in a convenient manner and — if/when you want to — print out that text. Just about everything related to formatting that text, never mind graphics, is encroaching into what is properly DTP software territory.
That would be text editor, and in that manner, emacs or vi is far superior to both Word and OO.o's Write.
However, by your logic, every kid who needs to as much as print out an essay title in a different font should get him/herself a DTP suite. What.
I didn't say that — what I did say is that any layout features are not basic functionality of a word processor. The difference between a text editor and a word processor is very hard to really put your finger on, since both have essentially the same function (allow people to input text) and their capabilities in text manipulation overlap quite far these days. The difference, really, is what they're used and optimized for: text editors for more technical work like working with source code etc., word processors for working with prose. That may seem trivial, but it's quite different functionality when you get down to it. Yes, that means that a lot of programs might be a text editor to one person and a word processor to another.
What? No it isn't. If the functionality of a program includes setting up any formatting that will be preserved by the file format and the format (markup, etc.) is hidden from the user* , it's a text processor, not a text editor**. If you can only work with files in plain text, it's a text editor.
*so that you won't argue that Notepad is a word processor because you can edit HTML. I bet you could find some stretchy examples that wouldn't fit this definition, but that's the best I can get without going into formal teritory.
**or neither, obviously.
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@Maciejasjmj said:
If the functionality of a program includes setting up any formatting that will be preserved by the file format and the format (markup, etc.) is hidden from the user*
What about WordPerfect's "show codes" mode? :-P
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@Zemm said:
@Maciejasjmj said:
If the functionality of a program includes setting up any formatting that will be preserved by the file format and the format (markup, etc.) can be hidden from the user*, and you can work on formatted text
What about WordPerfect's "show codes" mode? :-P
FTFM. Probably doesn't cover all cases either, but oh well.
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@Lorne Kates said:
BLAKEYRANT
You sound like one of those guys who download Linux expecting it to be a free Windows clone, so I'll just leave this here as the some of the same principles apply to your situation. I'm surprised no one's jokingly told you that you should ask for your money back yet.
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@DrPepper said:
Hi Lorne. This morning I posted a glowing praise of your work on the Halloween entry -- beautiful stuff. NOT AT ALL LIKE THIS POST. Way to take yourself down a couple of notches.
Since the rest of your post has been addressed, I'll just say thanks for reading and I'm glad you enjoy every word I write no matter what the word is or where it is written duct tape whiteboard sandwich.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
I'm surprised no one's jokingly told you that you should ask for your money back yet.
Why joke? I already got back every penny I paid for it. OO.o people are surprisingly effective at processing refunds. They must use Excel.
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@boomzilla said:
I disagree. I couldn't make it through the entire Halloween post (though I admit I'm not a big Lovecraft fan, either). I skipped to the comments to get the quick summary. Of course, that was more difficult than it should have been. Also, the styling of this post isn't attacking my rss reader, so it has that going for it.
This hurts me to my core. I shed tears made of ice cream and flannel.
=( =( =(
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@Lorne Kates said:
I shed tears made of ice cream and flannel.
Now you're making me hungry. That's it, I'm adblocking your future front page posts!
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@boomzilla said:
@Lorne Kates said:
...is there an adblocker that works on rss?I shed tears made of ice cream and flannel.
Now you're making me hungry. That's it, I'm adblocking your future front page posts!
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@Gurth said:
I didn't say that — what I did say is that any layout features are not basic functionality of a word processor.
Call it whatever you want , but the three most important features of Word and Writer are, in this order: entering text, formatting text and adding pictures to the text
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@Lorne Kates said:
@boomzilla said:
@Lorne Kates said:
I shed tears made of ice cream and flannel.
Now you're making me hungry. That's it, I'm adblocking your future front page posts!
...is there an adblocker that works on rss?Hmm...well, my rss reader is actually a chrome extension, so I suppose it's possible that another extension might be able to affect it. The absolute positioning of the Halloween TDWTF logo ends up covering part of the list of feeds and the top of the frame with the content preview. All text in the preview pane is black on black, too. Whatever you wrote in the article itself, the implementation was a top notch WTF. Mission accomplished!
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
@Lorne Kates said:
BLAKEYRANT
You sound like one of those guys who download Linux expecting it to be a free Windows clone, so I'll just leave this here as the some of the same principles apply to your situation. I'm surprised no one's jokingly told you that you should ask for your money back yet.
Of course, Linux is not like Windows. OO.o, on the other hand, is exactly like Office - or at least, like Office would be if its developers were grossly underpaid.
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@boomzilla said:
Whatever you wrote in the article itself, the implementation was a top notch WTF. Mission accomplished!
It wouldn't have been any fun if I had done it RIGHT.
It was basically a CSS injection attack. Aka "A CS special". Set the main logo to "visibility:hidden" so it can't been but was still a block-level element. The new logo was in the article, and was abs positioned. I honestly didn't think anyone's RSS feed would even obey arbitrary css in the newsfeed. I guess that's a WTF on my part and the RSS software part.
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@Lorne Kates said:
I honestly didn't think anyone's RSS feed would even obey arbitrary css in the newsfeed. I guess that's a WTF on my part and the RSS software part.
It's kind of weird. It ignores stuff like image sizes when it renders, but then used the absolute positioning.
On a less snarky note...when I read the article, I got the Lovecraft style, but it felt like you were setting us up for a shaggy dog story, and I totally didn't have the attention span for digging out the WTF that morning. I appreciate your writing on the front page, even if you don't give us enigmas like the President's Daughter.
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@Maciejasjmj said:
What? No it isn't. If the functionality of a program includes setting up any formatting that will be preserved by the file format and the format (markup, etc.) is hidden from the user* , it's a text processor, not a text editor**. If you can only work with files in plain text, it's a text editor.
So, since we're being pedantic: what about OS X TextEdit? That has formatting, but calls itself a text editor, but you can also set it to plain text mode. Or maybe Emacs? I've always been told it's a text editor, but it has enriched mode, which (depending on the version you use, I suppose) may display formatted text.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
You sound like one of those guys who download Linux expecting it to be a free Windows clone, so I'll just leave this here
Ah yes. The standard Linux/Open Source reply -- blame the user. It's not the fault of the shitty software, it's the user's fault. He has the wrong expectations.The problem with OpenOffice (or Linux or whatever) isn't that it's different. Any rational person, or Lorne, expects it to be different. People are actually much more willing to learn new things than they get credit for. What they don't want or expect is for something to be different in ways that make it less usable.
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@Gurth said:
@Maciejasjmj said:
What? No it isn't. If the functionality of a program includes setting up any formatting that will be preserved by the file format and the format (markup, etc.) is hidden from the user* , it's a text processor, not a text editor**. If you can only work with files in plain text, it's a text editor.
So, since we're being pedantic: what about OS X TextEdit? That has formatting, but calls itself a text editor, but you can also set it to plain text mode. Or maybe Emacs? I've always been told it's a text editor, but it has enriched mode, which (depending on the version you use, I suppose) may display formatted text.TextEdit is a highly versatile word processor included with OS X. Learn about it editing tools and different file formats it supports.
As for Emacs, it's everything but a kitchen sink* anyway... I'd say it's a (fairly crude) text processor, even if not many people use it as one. But that's one of the blurrier lines, I guess.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
I'll just leave this here
The vi approach is far more versatile and actually more intuitive: "X" and "V" are not obvious or memorable "Cut" and "Paste" commands, whereas "dw" to delete a word, and "p" to put it back is perfectly straightforward. But "X" and "V" are what we all know, so whilst vi is clearly superior, it's unfamiliar. Ergo, it is considered unfriendly. On no other basis, pure familiarity makes a Windows-like interface seem friendly. And as we learned in problem #1, Linux is necessarily different to Windows. Inescapably, Linux always appears less "user-friendly" than Windows.
God I hate that person so much. And anyone who ever uses vi as an example of a generic text editor.
It's not. Vi is the perfect anthitesis of GUI environments: focus just on maximizing the information density of user interactions, avoid giving any superfluous info (zero discoverability). It's completely unusable by someone who's only had experience with classical text editors, you need at least a few days of practice and a manual/tutorial to use it. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not meant for casual users. But don't call it "user-friendly" because IT'S NOT.
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@anonymous234 said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
I'll just leave this here
The vi approach is far more versatile and actually more intuitive: "X" and "V" are not obvious or memorable "Cut" and "Paste" commands, whereas "dw" to delete a word, and "p" to put it back is perfectly straightforward. But "X" and "V" are what we all know, so whilst vi is clearly superior, it's unfamiliar. Ergo, it is considered unfriendly. On no other basis, pure familiarity makes a Windows-like interface seem friendly. And as we learned in problem #1, Linux is necessarily different to Windows. Inescapably, Linux always appears less "user-friendly" than Windows.
God I hate that person so much. And anyone who ever uses vi as an example of a generic text editor.
It's not. Vi is the perfect anthitesis of GUI environments: focus just on maximizing the information density of user interactions, avoid giving any superfluous info (zero discoverability). It's completely unusable by someone who's only had experience with classical text editors, you need at least a few days of practice and a manual/tutorial to use it. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not meant for casual users. But don't call it "user-friendly" because IT'S NOT.
VI is (mentioned in) Userfriendly.
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@anonymous234 said:
But don't call it "user-friendly" because IT'S NOT.
He didn't; he called it superior. He called it more intuitive, but unfamiliar and, therefore, unfriendly.@anonymous234 said:
It's completely unusable by someone who's only had experience with classical text editors
As much as I like vi (gvim is my editor of choice), I have to agree with this.@anonymous234 said:
Vi is the perfect anthitesis of GUI environments
I disagree with this. In my opinion, emacs is the absolute antithesis. If I used it enough to learn it, I'd probably love it as much as any emacs fanboi, but to me the commands are unfamiliar, unintuitive and unmemorable. 3 strikes; it's out.
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@El_Heffe said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
You sound like one of those guys who download Linux expecting it to be a free Windows clone, so I'll just leave this here
Ah yes. The standard Linux/Open Source reply -- blame the user. It's not the fault of the shitty software, it's the user's fault. He has the wrong expectations.The problem with OpenOffice (or Linux or whatever) isn't that it's different. Any rational person, or Lorne, expects it to be different. People are actually much more willing to learn new things than they get credit for. What they don't want or expect is for something to be different in ways that make it less usable.
I don't use OpenOffice, so I can't vouch for that, but I find Linux way more usable than Windows. Most of what I do on Windows (apart from whatever game I'm addicted to at the moment) is ssh into a Linux box and type code into vim. I could use visual studio or eclipse if I really needed to, but I just feel more comfortable with a not-fucked-up command line shell.
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@Lorne Kates said:
Then the interesting glitches came along. Saving as .docx usually didn't work quiet right-- enough that there were random problems opening such files on other copies of Word or trying to import to Google Docs. Fine, just be sure to save as .doc (2003). Annoying, but solvable. Or at least work-around-able.
Why in the world were you using a foreign file format to save your work in? This works about as well as using Word to work with .odt files.
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@anonymous234 said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
You have to wonder who'd listen to the opinion of someone who can't see the obvious, memorable link between Ctrl-C for copy, and Ctrl-the-two-keys-next-to-it for cut and paste.I'll just leave this here
The vi approach is far more versatile and actually more intuitive: "X" and "V" are not obvious or memorable "Cut" and "Paste" commands, whereas "dw" to delete a word, and "p" to put it back is perfectly straightforward. But "X" and "V" are what we all know, so whilst vi is clearly superior, it's unfamiliar. Ergo, it is considered unfriendly. On no other basis, pure familiarity makes a Windows-like interface seem friendly. And as we learned in problem #1, Linux is necessarily different to Windows. Inescapably, Linux always appears less "user-friendly" than Windows.
God I hate that person so much.
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@El_Heffe said:
Were you here for the Windows 8 thread?Any rational person, or Lorne, expects it to be different. People are actually much more willing to learn new things than they get credit for. What they don't want or expect is for something to be different in ways that make it less usable.
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@ender said:
Why in the world were you using a foreign file format to save your work in? This works about as well as using Word to work with .odt files.
... seriously?
Because I'm the only one in the word who uses .odt, and I have work to send to editors, critique partners, etc.
Have you ever had to interact with another human being via file?
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@Lorne Kates said:
@ender said:
Why in the world were you using a foreign file format to save your work in? This works about as well as using Word to work with .odt files.
... seriously?
Because I'm the only one in the word who uses .odt, and I have work to send to editors, critique partners, etc.
Have you ever had to interact with another human being via file?
If you interact with people you are supposed to use Google Docs. It's annoying because it's in a browser, it has less features than OpenOffice, and when it's down all you can do is keep an eye on a Google Support blog to see what is going on, but if all the planets line up at the right moment you can see in real time when people write in the shared document! Pure magic.
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@Lorne Kates said:
Because I'm the only one in the word who uses .odt, and I have work to send to editors, critique partners, etc.
Then export to .doc/.docx when you need to send the document out. Repeatedly opening and saving .doc will glitch sooner or later.
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@Lorne Kates said:
Oh, and LibreOffice 4.1 uses the Sidebar to. Forget it. Back to Word.
The LibreOffice 4.1 sidebar is an "Experimental" feature that is not enabled by default.
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Also, now that I tried it, it's a lot more like the Word 2000/XP sidebar than any ribbon. One of the options on the Sidebar is "Styles and formatting" which is very similar to the similarly-named sidebar in Word 2000. That makes it much easier to write a semantically-correct document that won't break at the slightest nudge.
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Office simply works so we stick with it.
Outlook 2013 -- now that is a giant step backwards into stupid land.
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@Circuitsoft said:
[Styles make] it much easier to write a semantically-correct document that won't break at the slightest nudge.
Yes, which is why anyone who's actually serious about writing will be using that sort of thing. There are a lot of people about who have no idea whatsoever about how to do this sort of thing though, and there's one critical non-obvious thing (at least with Word): do not change the paragraph settings on the Normal paragraph style if you intend to use any diagrams that aren't just raster pixmaps (GIFs, PNGs, JPGs, etc) as Word otherwise tries to apply the paragraph settings to lots of places where it shouldn't (and does a bad job of it). If you want nice paragraphs, you really should make your own style. (I've got all that set up in my templates, even if I tinker with fonts and indentations for each significant document.)
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@dkf said:
@Circuitsoft said:
[Styles make] it much easier to write a semantically-correct document that won't break at the slightest nudge.
Yes, which is why anyone who's actually serious about writing will be using that sort of thing. There are a lot of people about who have no idea whatsoever about how to do this sort of thing though, and there's one critical non-obvious thing (at least with Word): do not change the paragraph settings on the Normal paragraph style if you intend to use any diagrams that aren't just raster pixmaps (GIFs, PNGs, JPGs, etc) as Word otherwise tries to apply the paragraph settings to lots of places where it shouldn't (and does a bad job of it). If you want nice paragraphs, you really should make your own style. (I've got all that set up in my templates, even if I tinker with fonts and indentations for each significant document.)It always amazes me how college students can pass the introductory computer class that includes Word, Excel and Access and NOT know about styles.
One day the HR department at a company I'm applying for work will look at my neatly formatted and styled Word document and say, "Here's the guy we want to hire!"
One day.
