What makes a good UI good?

It would appear to be a guide aimed at writing RISC OS publications. ;-)

<beep>!

In that case, I’d agree. I never understood why the style guide, in some electronic version, wasn’t available for free. There was detailed free info on how to make podules, but not how to make apps behave in a consistent manner. It’s almost as if Acorn didn’t really care….?!

It’s almost as if Acorn didn’t really care….?!

Maybe they feared that every reader would notice that most of Acorn’s own apps were not following their own Style Guide?

Maybe they feared that every reader would notice that most of Acorn’s own apps were not following their own Style Guide?

Perhaps so. :(

Since we are a good 20-ish years on from that era I think we should be looking for a different attitude and helping newcomers produce software that matches the OS and even encouraging modification of any errant items even if that means changing the current key shortcuts to something familiar across platforms or at the very least something logical.

Yes, I was thinking something similar earlier today. Particularly around, if the Style Guide contains short-cuts which don’t make sense any more, perhaps we should be considering change…

if the Style Guide contains short-cuts which don’t make sense any more,

Ah – but the problem is that the conventions of RISC OS predate those used by Windows, and are still in use today. While I use the ^C and ^V stuff in Windows, I’m also just as used to the “immediate” way of doing it as demonstrated by Zap, Edit…

Question is, do we retain traditional RISC OS behaviour, or go for a standardised option? What about when the standardised option doesn’t behave in the expected way (cut removes, and copy/move take immediate effect (like Zap and Edit)), plus it isn’t (by standard) possible to select/copy/paste within writeable icons and menus.

You know, there was once a time when moving something in a document would be ^KB (block start), move cursor, ^KK (block end), move cursor, ^KV. Gah, why do I still remember that rubbish? I’ve not used those key combos in decades!

Question is, do we retain traditional RISC OS behaviour, or go for a standardised option? What about when the standardised option doesn’t behave in the expected way (cut removes, and copy/move take immediate effect (like Zap and Edit)), plus it isn’t (by standard) possible to select/copy/paste within writeable icons and menus.

The Style Guide dealt with that one many years ago (in 1993), which is why Edit has been updated to use the standard shortcuts.

You know, there was once a time when moving something in a document would be ^KB (block start), move cursor, ^KK (block end), move cursor, ^KV. Gah, why do I still remember that rubbish? I’ve not used those key combos in decades!

Good old Wordstar – the first ‘program editor’ I ever used in anger developing Dataflex programs under CCPM… Those were the days! :~}

Ah – but the problem is that the conventions of RISC OS predate those used by Windows,

Which version? Things have changed along the way, plus Windows and MS applications tend to be rather random in their use of key shortcuts. My favourite regular rant is about dimwitted programmers doing different things with ^F

You know, there was once a time when moving something in a document would be ^KB (block start), move cursor, ^KK (block end), move cursor, ^KV.

UNIX geekery. (OK, if I’m being dismissive like that I really shouldn’t show any sign I recognise it.)

The Style Guide dealt with that one many years ago (in 1993), which is why Edit has been updated to use the standard shortcuts.

But I do recall lots of fuss when having “Delete” instead of ^K on the desktop was being discussed. Always a good idea to ignore what every other OS does and ignore a nice key labelled “Delete” into the bargain because just everybody else is so wrong. Given the utilities on your web pages I’m probably preaching to the converted.

plus it isn’t (by standard) possible to select/copy/paste within writeable icons and menus.

Another little item that ought to be integrated.

Another little item that ought to be integrated.

It’s planned, but there doesn’t seem to be much interest.

I approve of styleguides on principle, but keyboard shortcuts I find uninteresting as I never use them. I try to get away with avoiding the keyboard as much as possible.

Whereas for some of us, the keyboard is our preferred means of communication…I can type far, far faster than I can use a mouse. Not so bad with the trackpad on the Mac – oh, for a decent trackpad instead of a mouse for the Pi (or for second best, a Marconi Trackerball, other trackballs not so good) – but rather the keyboard than any of those things, any day.

A drive towards more keyboards shortcuts within the OS would be good. ctrl-a – select all files within a folder… Move / Copy to: facility would be useful within the !Filer.

Also extending the mouse functionality to include things such as drag n drog selected files onto a folder to move or copy would be good. I personally don’t believe you need to signpost these things within the filer, but they could be highlighted in !Help.

Always a good idea to ignore what every other OS does and ignore a nice key labelled “Delete” into the bargain because just everybody else is so wrong.

Having both perhaps might have been a good compromise. Although I can admit to at least once accidentially deleting a set of files using ctrl-k. I was probably thinking I was using RISC OS Select and safe in the knowledge that these could be undone, face palm; Ctrl or Delete – doh!

I know there’s trapdelete, but a recycle bin would really help or an undo keyboard shortcut!

I try to get away with avoiding the keyboard as much as possible.

You’d use the menus instead of F4 to search? ^something to copy and paste?

Also extending the mouse functionality to include things such as drag n drog selected files onto a folder to move or copy would be good.

Hold Shift…

You’d use the menus instead of F4 to search? ^something to copy and paste?

Yes. My typing has always been monodactyl. Speed does not come into it. For me, keyboard shortcuts are on a par with running-boards for cars: vestiges of a previous era.

So you prefer to ride on the Dickie Seat instead?

ctrl-a – select all files within a folder…

ROOL already did Control-A

; Ctrl+Alpha key combinations
 TEQ     r0, #CR                   ; Enter (Ctrl-M)         ;ROOL option
 BEQ     key_open
 TEQ     r0, #8                    ; Backspace (Ctrl-H)     ;ROOL option
 BEQ     key_open_parent           ;     Ctrl-H (Backspace) action => open parent directory
 TEQ     r0, #1                    ; Ctrl-A                 ;ROOL option
 BEQ     DecodeMenu_SelectAll      ;     Ctrl-A action => select all objects in focus directory

Sort of like they did Ctrl-R for rename (but they forgot the entry in the messages file so you don’t see the shortcut hint in the menu)

 [ AltRenaming
        TEQ     r0, #18                   ; Ctrl-R
        BEQ     key_rename                ;     Ctrl-R action => enter rename mode for first file selected
 ]

Note that if you have selected all (or just more than one file it only does the rename on the first selected file in the list.

Move / Copy to: facility would be useful within the !Filer.

 TEQ     r0, #CR                   ; Enter (Ctrl-M)         ;ROOL option
 BEQ     key_open

Well obviously ctrl-M is already gone – long ago. Alt-M perhaps?

For me, keyboard shortcuts are on a par with running-boards for cars: vestiges of a previous era

Many moons ago (around ‘97 or so), I signed up with a work agency. They gave me a typing test using Word to lay out a fairly simple document with styles. Only if wasn’t Word, it was a clone that measured typing speed, accuracy, etc.

I failed. Badly.

The idiotic software expected me to type a word, reach for the mouse, find a button on the screen, click it, to back to the keyboard to type the word in bold or italics or whatever, then go back to the mouse, click that button again, then back to the keyboard to finish the sentence.

I asked, before being written off, it they had a real copy of Word that I could try. I was moved to another computer and I did it all entirely with keyboard shortcuts (including using the menu to save the document: Alt-F, A). I saw the staff of the place watching with their mouths open like none of them had any idea that these shortcuts existed. WTactualF?
If was about then that I decided on a career change, and went to look after old people. Much more fulfilling.

At any rate, I think it is useful to have icons to click on, but for a program that has predominantly textual input, shortcuts are essentia. To leave the keyboard mid sentence to find something to click is an expensive context switch. If I want a word in italics for emphasis, I want a simple and rapid way to set and unset this (without breaking my concentration). Anything else is the UI getting in the way.

…is an expensive context switch.

This is absolutely right. For textual input to work well, you need to have laboured sufficiently so that your fingers have memorized the shortcuts, leaving your brain free. Even graphical interfaces require quite a bit of experience before they become easy to use.

Sorry about the running-board simile; I could not resist a bit of superfluous needling :). VW Beetles had them in Dr Porsche’s first designs.

Seriously, short of a direct brainwave input to computers, for discrete data entry, I doubt anything better than a keyboard is possible. For analogue data entry obviously it has to be a mouse, trackball or trackpad rather than a keyboard – and I can imagine that there might be other options that might even be better.

When I say “a keyboard” I don’t mean necessarily a QWERTY-style keyboard, but something with buttons that the fingers can find without the eyes having to be involved.

There used to be an input device with buttons, small enough to operate digitally in your pocket. I have forgotten its name. Now that I have attempted to use a tablet, I realise that the great virtue of a properly functioning keyboard/mouse is the comforting assurance that no input has taken place unless you have actually pressed keys/buttons.

I guess you’re probably thinking of the Microwriter? I was specifically thinking of that when I wrote my generalized description of “keyboard,” but there have been others. Any one of them would probably be an improvement on QWERTY, if it weren’t for all the infrastructure and individual skills already invested in QWERTY.

Even just the positions of keys on a conventional keyboard could probably be optimized – again, if it weren’t for the existing investment in infrastructure and skills. Dvorak probably is better, but everyone knows QWERTY.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the QWERTY layout was specifically designed to slow the typist down. Apparently early typewriters, on which the depression of a key caused an arm with a character on the end to swing up and strike the page, jammed up very easily at high typing-speeds as the arms became entangled. Incidently, the original meaning of character can be understood from charax meaning a sharpened pole, or vine-stake. Hence the little sharpened stylus for use on a waxed surface (ancient Greek laptops), and then the mark it makes on the wax.

Apparently early typewriters, […] jammed up very easily at high typing-speeds […]

Not apparently. I’ve seen typists get arms jammed on manual typewriters, in the eighties. The problem is that a good finger prod gives the arms a kick but the spring loaded retraction mechanism is slower, so the problem is that the arm doesn’t get out of the way in time.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the QWERTY layout was specifically designed to slow the typist down. Apparently early typewriters, on which the depression of a key caused an arm with a character on the end to swing up and strike the page, jammed up very easily at high typing-speeds as the arms became entangled.

I’ve read the same thing and also read that it is a myth.
Pick a few words and see how often two handed typing can use characters from opposite sides close after each other.

It’s certainly easy to get arms tangled on a manual typewriter – not so much by being a fast typist, as by being an erratic typist. With a nice, even rhythm one can do 120wpm or more on a decent manual typewriter without tangling the keys, but an erratic typist can tangle them at considerably slower speeds than that.

But why the commoner letters are almost all on the left hand, who knows? Was the person who designed it a leftie?