Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery
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@twelvebaud said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@sockpuppet7 You just need to set your panels, anchors, and such correctly, and that'll have you covered from quarter-VGA to 1280x1024. Just make sure your layout is okay with the default button being ripped out and shoved in the upper-right corner, renamed "OK".
(Made more than a few apps that ran on both desktop and phone back in 2004. Strangely enough, doing the same now.)
Nobody said it was impossible. I said it wasn't great for doing that.
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@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
Oh snap, I'm not on xamarin.com, I'm on visualstudio.microsoft.com/xamarin. They haven't even updated their google index.
So insta-fail there. Let's try xamarin primer
Top result: A primer on c# for xamarin developers.
Second result: "Getting started with Xamarin". That seems familiar. Because it's the same link I followed when I first started. And it's dated Apr 10, 2017, so it has to be out of date.
Okay, how about xamarin getting started
third hit is https://developer.xamarin.com/getting-started/, which isn't dated. Maybe it's a living doc. Let's try. Buncha bullshit and "On windows? try our visual studio 2017 getting started".Or, you can read and not TRY to make things harder than they are. On your first result, if you read the page there is a link that says "Getting Started" . That link takes you to the third link on your list where, right at the top of the page in the heading is a link to "Documentation". Two clicks and you are done.
Also, relying on Google to take you to the right place every time is kind of TRWTF.
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An interesting development in all of this is the Ooui project (https://github.com/praeclarum/Ooui). This is a long-term project to take your existing Xamarin Forms code and render out as either an interactive HTML app, or a WebAssembly.
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@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
Or, you can read and not TRY to make things harder than they are. On your first result, if you read the page there is a link that says "Getting Started" .
Really? You really think so?
Apologies if the DumbBox doesn't de-embiggen, but here's the first link. I opened it on a 1920x1080 monitor, and set it to full screen. This is the maximum amount of "reading the page" that can be done without scrolling.
No "Getting Started" link.
I even ctrl-f'd for "Getting Started"
nothing.
So you want to try again?
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/xamarin/
https://i.imgur.com/IJPwGtR.pngThat link takes you to the third link on your list where, right at the top of the page in the heading is a link to "Documentation". Two clicks and you are done.
Or, you can read and not TRY to make things harder than they are. On your that result, if you read my post, there is a me saying the link that says "Getting Started" leads to documentation that is over a year stale. As in wrong, out of date, incorrect, unusable.
Whatever mega-boner you have for Xamarin must have gotten so big and swollen that it poked you right in the eye. That can be the only reason you are unable to read.
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Also, relying on Google to take you to the right place every time is kind of TRWTF.
LOL. Are you fucking serious? So, I'm just supposed to know, right off the bat, psychically, the exact URL I'm supposed to go to?
Yes, I fucking expect Google to take me to the right place for something like a fucking .Net framework that is OWNED BY MICROSOFT that has been in existence for many years. I'm not searching for "umm, that one recipe, I think it had pineapple, but in metric".
Here, let's compare and contrast. Let me google for "Getting Started X", and see the first link, where X is:
- Unity: lands me straight on the Getting Started guide. It's the complete (and accurate and up-to-date) manual, which includes installation instructions and links to demo projects.
- Wordpress: Lands me right on the Getting Started page, which includes installation instructions, terminology primers, hosting, customizing, and developing themes/plug-ins
- XCode: lands me right on Apple's "Getting Started" page, which includes how to install xCode on your mac, and links to demos and instructions
- Android Studio: lands me right on developer.android.com 's page for getting started, including "develop your first app"
- DISCOURSE, for fuck's sake, even has a single "how to install and build the forum" page!
Do I even need to continue?
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@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
Or, you can read and not TRY to make things harder than they are. On your first result, if you read the page there is a link that says "Getting Started" .
Really? You really think so?
Apologies if the DumbBox doesn't de-embiggen, but here's the first link. I opened it on a 1920x1080 monitor, and set it to full screen. This is the maximum amount of "reading the page" that can be done without scrolling.
No "Getting Started" link.
I even ctrl-f'd for "Getting Started"
nothing.
So you want to try again?
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/xamarin/
https://i.imgur.com/IJPwGtR.pngThat link takes you to the third link on your list where, right at the top of the page in the heading is a link to "Documentation". Two clicks and you are done.
Or, you can read and not TRY to make things harder than they are. On your that result, if you read my post, there is a me saying the link that says "Getting Started" leads to documentation that is over a year stale. As in wrong, out of date, incorrect, unusable.
Whatever mega-boner you have for Xamarin must have gotten so big and swollen that it poked you right in the eye. That can be the only reason you are unable to read.
I read it just fine. As for stale documentation links - welcome to working with Microsoft. Takes them forever to port documentation over. They are finally getting where they flag the articles for earlier versions of SQL server that they are old and you should be using the new documentation. On the upside, the documentation (almost) never disappears, which helps when you are working with an older version and need the documentation for that.
As for scrolling on a web page - that is, unfortunately, the "modern" design of many web pages in 2017/2018. Frustrates me to no end, but I am used to it now. Any time I see a page that flows like that on any company's site I have learned to scroll down to find what I am looking for.
On the flip side of things, I may not be the best example of learning something new. I tend to learn it without much documentation, often when things are in pre-release. I experiment and learn what is wrong and try to fix it. I have been doing this in programs for so long now (35 years) since I was a kid and growing up with it that it is just automatic to me. MSDN, IBM, etc. have always lacked documentation according to many people, where I was completely content with what was there and just worked forward from it.
I now evaluate things much more on their maintainability, efficiency, and easy of use after an assumed learning curve than I do for how fast I can get started with something. That is because most of the easy-to-get-started platforms you end up running into a wall at some point, or doing major work-a-rounds full of WTFery that becomes hard to maintain. Many times it is also full of "magic" that you can only coax into getting it just right rather than it being solid. Since .Net and XAML in general are solid concepts that don't have that "magic" that you can't dig down into and work at the lower level if you need to, I am comfortable there. Xamarin Forms specifically is just another XAML flavor with different renderers for the different platforms.
Xamarin itself does not need Xamarin Forms. My first Xamarin app pre-dates Xamarin forms. All of the UI on the platforms is "native", though built in C#, while the data, view-models, and the majority of the code is in shared libraries. Works great - you just have to build the actual GUI separately on each platform. Xamarin Forms just allows you to build the GUI portion once as well.
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@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
DISCOURSE, for fuck's sake, even has a single "how to install and build the forum" page!
That must be a reaallllyyyyy long page
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@timebandit said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
DISCOURSE, for fuck's sake, even has a single "how to install and build the forum" page!
That must be a reaallllyyyyy long page
"And magic happens."
Nope, nice and short...
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@dcon said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
"And magic happens."
Nope, nice and short...Pray it works...
Or just let us host it for you
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@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
Or, you can read and not TRY to make things harder than they are. On your first result, if you read the page there is a link that says "Getting Started" .
Really? You really think so?
Apologies if the DumbBox doesn't de-embiggen, but here's the first link. I opened it on a 1920x1080 monitor, and set it to full screen. This is the maximum amount of "reading the page" that can be done without scrolling.
No "Getting Started" link.
I even ctrl-f'd for "Getting Started"
nothing.
So you want to try again?
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/xamarin/
Ok, sorry I messed the form of the word up and you can't be bothered to read the page. It is "Get started", in the first feature section labeled "Target all platforms".
Still, the page should have more clickable links up top, you would thing...
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@timebandit said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@dcon said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
"And magic happens."
Nope, nice and short...P
ray to make it works...Or just let us host it for you
Just adjusting line1 to work with line2...
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@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
Yes, I fucking expect Google to take me to the right place for something like a fucking .Net framework that is OWNED BY MICROSOFT that has been in existence for many years.
I note that you're not being so foolish as to expect Bing to manage that.
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@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
On the upside, the documentation (almost) never disappears
True. If only Microsoft stopped reorganizing MSDN every 6 months according to the fad-of-the-day, or at least were clever enough to include a GUID in the URLs. That way, you could link to a piece of documentation one day, and someone reading your post 3 years later could actually see what you're talking about instead of an error page.
Science-fiction, I know.
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@zerosquare said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
On the upside, the documentation (almost) never disappears
True. If only Microsoft stopped reorganizing MSDN every 6 months according to the fad-of-the-day, or at least were clever enough to include a GUID in the URLs. That way, you could link to a piece of documentation one day, and someone reading your post 3 years later could actually see what you're talking about instead of an error page.
Science-fiction, I know.
I am hoping that this move to http://docs.microsoft.com will be the last big move for a long time. They are embracing GitHub Issues for comments on their documentation. I think this will be a positive move long term. Always hard to turn a ship that big, though, with as much documentation as they have accumulated. They still have the docs for VBSQL up on MSDN.
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@timebandit said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
DISCOURSE, for fuck's sake, even has a single "how to install and build the forum" page!
That must be a reaallllyyyyy long page
Infinitely long.
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@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
DISCOURSE, for fuck's sake, even has a single "how to install and build the forum" page!
My one-word summary:
Don't.
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@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
VBSQL
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@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
I am hoping that this move to http://docs.microsoft.com will be the last big move for a long time.
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@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
I read it just fine.
mm-hmm. So where is the "getting started" link you talked about? You'll notice I even did a CRTL-F on the page.
@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
As for stale documentation links - welcome to working with Microsoft.
"The documentation is readily available"
No it isn't.
"I mean the documentation is available here."
No it isn't.
"I mean it's Microsoft's fault for not having the documentation ported over"
The documentation was shit, and was shit months/years before Microsoft flipped the URL.
Next?
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@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
It is "Get started", in the first feature section labeled "Target all platforms".
A tiny hyperlink below the fold on a 1080px tall monitor. Okay. Let's click it.
https://developer.xamarin.com/getting-started/
https://i.imgur.com/lVNkCbW.png
Mac.
Let's give the benefit of the doubt and assume the site thinks my Firefox 57 / Windows useragent is actually a Mac. Let's click on the ON Windows? section.
https://developer.xamarin.com/getting-started/#windows
Hmm, that # sounds familiar. Oh yeah, because we already visited this page in my original "how do I get started" post.
All it says is install Visual Studio (first link), then Install Xamarin-- the page from Sept 2017,
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/cross-platform/get-started/installation/windows#Installation
And that whole page is out-of-date bullshit because it tells me to install Xamarin seperately-- even though it is bundled with Windows.
And it's double bullshit because the screenshots and examples they use contain ".Net Framework 4.6.1". Except Xamarin now targets some version of .Net Core 2-- which is why NONE of the examples they have anywhere online work. Because all the demo code is written for .Net 4.6.x, and not .Net Core.
Besides of which, that "getting started" page doesn't have the PhoneWord demo project at all.
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I reported and got the good ol' "thanks we'll look into it" response. Moving on then.
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@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@tsaukpaetra said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
Classic ASP (also not a real term)
But Wikipedia says so!
ASP, yes.
"Classic" ASP (which is what people say when they refer to that and not ASP.Net), no.
There was no war named World War I, but we still have one we call that.
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@ben_lubar said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
There was no war named World War I, but we still have one we call that.
It's called a retronym. Here, I'll sing you a song about it using my acoustic guitar
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@ben_lubar said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
There was no war named World War I, but we still have one we call that.
I still call it The Great War because it was a better name, dammit.
@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
It's called a retronym. Here, I'll sing you a song about it using my acoustic guitar
That one's even dumber, because "acoustic" as opposed to what? Those guitars that make paintings?
(Yes, yes, humor ruiners, I know it's short for "acoustically amplified" as opposed to "electrically amplified".)
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@blakeyrat It is a better name. And don't worry, the use of metaphor as a means of communication may explain itself to you eventually, after you challenge it aggressively as to its fundamental ability to do so.
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@gribnit Metaphors like that only work if everybody starts on the same page. Like if you started "imagine a class is a person" to set up the metaphor, then maybe. But just saying "a class owns property" right up front is going to confuse the bejeesus out of people.
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@blakeyrat It wasn't a metaphor. Sigh.
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@blakeyrat said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
That one's even dumber, because "acoustic" as opposed to what? Those guitars that make paintings?
(Yes, yes, humor ruiners, I know it's short for "acoustically amplified" as opposed to "electrically amplified".)Acoustic as opposed to elephant farts.
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@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@blakeyrat said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
That one's even dumber, because "acoustic" as opposed to what? Those guitars that make paintings?
(Yes, yes, humor ruiners, I know it's short for "acoustically amplified" as opposed to "electrically amplified".)Acoustic as opposed to elephant farts.
I'm opposed to acoustic elephant farts.
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@hardwaregeek Autotuner has ruined everyone's ears.
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@gribnit They don't even have to use real elephants anymore.
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@pie_flavor I would suppose using virtual elephants would make them less olfactory, too.
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@hardwaregeek said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
I'm opposed to acoustic elephant farts.
plz buy my new album at ElectricElephantFarts.bandcamp.com
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@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
On the upside, the documentation (almost) never disappears, which helps when you are working with an older version and need the documentation for that.
Not in my experience. Most of the times I hit F1 in Visual Studio for details on generic error messages I get lead to a (nonfunctional) search page telling me "maybe you wanted microsoft.com ?"
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@tsaukpaetra said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
On the upside, the documentation (almost) never disappears, which helps when you are working with an older version and need the documentation for that.
Not in my experience. Most of the times I hit F1 in Visual Studio for details on generic error messages I get lead to a (nonfunctional) search page telling me "maybe you wanted microsoft.com ?"
Which then redirects you TO microsoft.com. Not to the page ON microsoft.com you were looking for. Just directly to it. Congratulations, you're on Microsoft's homepage-- the single most useless page in the world!
Oops, sorry, I mean it'll first redirect you through five layers of live.com SSO authentication pages, which completely fuck up your back button.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@the_bytemaster said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
On the upside, the documentation (almost) never disappears, which helps when you are working with an older version and need the documentation for that.
Not in my experience. Most of the times I hit F1 in Visual Studio for details on generic error messages I get lead to a (nonfunctional) search page telling me "maybe you wanted microsoft.com ?"
In my experience the online documentation is useless due to the utterly crappy search, but it mostly works if you install the offline documentation. At least for the things like function specification and error messages that can be looked up in the index. Then it is sometimes even not as in the old joke:
A guy is flying around in a helicopter when a fog falls and his nav radio gave out, so he's not sure where he is. Luckily he spots this high rise and there is somebody sitting by an open window. So he hovers close by and shouts a question “Where am I??”. “In a helicopter” comes a reply. Upon hearing that the pilots turns around and shortly arrives at the nearby airfield. “How did you make it?” “Well, by that precise, but utterly useless answer I figured it must be the Microsoft offices and then it was easy.”
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@tsaukpaetra said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
I hit F1 in Visual Studio
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@mrl said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@tsaukpaetra said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
I hit F1 in Visual Studio
I will admit it's one of the most dusty but unblemished keys on the board. Right up there with System Request.
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@lorne-kates said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
Oops, sorry, I mean it'll first redirect you through five layers of live.com SSO authentication pages, which completely fuck up your back button.
Man, I wish it would do that to me. On my box it doesn't stop after 5 and then ends up at a page saying that it's hit a redirect loop and I've been rate-limited. This happens whenever I try to search anything, too, so the search feature is just completely nonfunctional for me.
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@tsaukpaetra Speak for yourself. I hit the key labeled SysRq about five times a day. Granted, it shares the key with Prt Sc, but that's beside the point.
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@pie_flavor said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
Speak for yourself.
I... did?
@tsaukpaetra said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
I will admit it's one of the most dusty but unblemished keys on the board. Right up there with System Request.
The only key more dust than that is the Calc button. I've never pushed it.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
The only key more dust than that is the Calc button. I've never pushed it.
I actually use that fairly often...
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@dcon said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@tsaukpaetra said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
The only key more dust than that is the Calc button. I've never pushed it.
I actually use that fairly often...
Do you also use the Internet button?
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And what about this one?
https://tr1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2013/06/07/b0acde96-d4c2-11e2-bc00-02911874f8c8/Fig_I_6-7.pnga.k.a. the "fuck NO!" key, when you hit it by mistake back when OSes and machines had semi-broken sleep support, and would crash on suspend or wakeup.
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@zerosquare Heh, my current keyboard has one of those. Fortunately, like the one in your picture, it's small and shallow.
Back in college one of the labs had keyboards with an extra set of (same-sized) keys between the arrow keys and the.. let's call them navigation keys. Like this:
I don't remember what the two other keys were, but the one in the middle was a sleep key. What great design that was.
Oh, and the navigation keys were also in a different order than usual.
Home | Ins | PgUp
End | Del | PgDn
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@zerosquare I use that every day.
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@zecc: your post reminded me of something I had completely forgotten/repressed.
A long time ago, my computer at work had a keyboard like this (not that exact model ; it was a plain beige, noname, very cheap one - but the keys layout was the same):
https://i.imgur.com/nGN6P6I.jpgWanna take a screenshot while relying on muscle memory? Bam, enjoy your computer going to sleep. And at the time, whether it would wake up was a coin toss (because the rest of the hardware was about as well designed as the keyboard).
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@zerosquare I might have been misremembering. The layout might have been like the one in your picture.
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@zerosquare I don't have that one.
@tsaukpaetra said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
Do you also use the Internet button?
Guess that would be the "Web/Home" button. All those programmable buttons are very dusty... I also don't use the Zoom button in the middle. I do use the forward/back ones a lot!
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@pie_flavor said in Xamarin's contiuing barrel of cross-platform, XML-encoding fut the wuckery:
@tsaukpaetra Speak for yourself. I hit the key labeled SysRq about five times a day. Granted, it shares the key with Prt Sc, but that's beside the point.
What about the numberpad 5 (without numlock on).