How to become a command line guru?

You’re all still getting to know me, but one thing you should know is I love the command lines and keyboard shortcuts. It’s were I live.

To give you an idea, I once reassembled a laptop I had fixed, and it took me a week of full-time use (I didn’t use any other computer during this time) before I realised I forgot to connect the mouse! (I was running cwm on OpenBSD)

Now RO is very different to what I am used to. It’s quite mouse-centric. DDE is the weirdest dev environment I’ve ever used because it’s drag’n’drop, although I am figuring out its command line elements. The command line is so foreign to me. Give me a korn shell and I’ll give you a run for your money, but RO is like nothing I’ve ever used before. (except maybe Cisco IOS)

So here’s the tl;dr

Where can I find a document on the shell or power user features? The documentation is great for new computer users, but it’s like pulling teeth for me trying to find the meat.

The RISC OS user guide has an appendix that covers the command line in pretty good detail; I suspect that’s how many RISC OS users (myself included) first got to grips with it.

https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/common (PDF copies of the RISC OS 3.7 and work-in-progress RISC OS 5 user guide at the bottom of the page)

The RISC OS 3.10 applications guide also contains some tutorials on how to create your own simple applications (something which would launch a program in 65Host?), but I’m not sure if that would be useful to you or not.

http://www.4corn.co.uk/articles/docs/

On Linux/BSD I use the command line for most everything (except programming in an IDE at work and viewing PDF documents) but on RISC OS I find that I’m very comfortable with the mouse in a way that I never have been on Windows or Linux/BSD (or Macs one-button weirdness).

I wonder if its the intuitive use of three buttons that makes it feel so natural?

but on RISC OS I find that I’m very comfortable with the mouse in a way that I never have been on Windows or Linux/BSD (or Macs one-button weirdness).

Never minded mac’s one-button, and I know quite a few keyboard shortcuts for Windows. It’s really horses for courses. Drag to save is irritating 90% of the time for me. For that 10% when I need to save to an obscure place it’s actually cool.

I’m a hardcore power user, and the mouse is a slow way to interact with a computer so it is very irritating for me to use it heavily.

Never minded mac’s one-button,

Perhaps you never had to deal with the early Mac GUI that had context based menus where the menu was a drop down from the top thus inducing major mouse movement requirements (and much swearing by me since I was used to menus popping up under the mouse pointer). All things considered even the Windows 3.0 GUI was better than that.

Perhaps you never had to deal with the early Mac GUI that had context based menus where the menu was a drop down from the top

I did, but used keyboard not the mouse.

I did, but used keyboard not the mouse

Which, I think, demonstrates how criminally useless it was in that memorising keyboard shortcuts was a better option than using the mouse to navigate the GUI.

We could of course usefully add (more) keyboard shortcuts to RO.

Which, I think, demonstrates how criminally useless it was in that memorising keyboard shortcuts was a better option than using the mouse to navigate the GUI.

Although that is my opinion of most GUI practises. Never met an option with the keyboard over the mouse that I didn’t like. I even wrote a command-line app for generating graphics when I was developing websites. It was tons faster than any of my Adobe friends could do in photoshop.

We could of course usefully add (more) keyboard shortcuts to RO.

.* grins *

We could of course usefully add (more) keyboard shortcuts to RO.

.* grins *

Um, ah, er, yeah. Not even looked at that little educational exercise for many months.
Time to do something useful when not at work I suppose.

All things considered even the Windows 3.0 GUI was better than that.

The Windows 3.0 GUI was also six years later :)

You have to understand that the first version of Windows that I consider to be even vaguely worth the act of turning the power on is Win3.1.

3.0 counts as a pretty naff alpha as far as I’m concerned and it was still better than the early Mac GUI.

To be honest, there’s only 2 Windows I like. Win 3.11 and Win 10. I think the first GUI I ever used was GEM on my Amstrad.

It was Amiga Workbench for me! :—)

My brother still uses it…in fact I think he’s just installed version 4.1 on his X1000. Not sure what its like to use nowadays though!

I agree that drag-and-drop to save takes a little bit of getting used to!

My brother still uses it…in fact I think he’s just installed version 4.1 on his X1000

4.1 is quite new and the x1000 is quite a pricey computer. Partly the reason why I was drawn to RO. It uses the cheaper ARM architecture instead of the expensive PowerPC arch.

I agree that drag-and-drop to save takes a little bit of getting used to!

I’m actually quite used to it and I admit it can be handy sometimes, but it’s just not my preferred method. Why hit your Panasonic EVQP0E07K switch when you can pound on your non-linear cherry MX switches? Lol xD

even vaguely worth the act of turning the power on is Win3.1.

WfWG 3.11 with TCP/IP add-on if you want to have a chance of talking to the outside world…

WfWG 3.11 with TCP/IP add-on if you want to have a chance of talking to the outside world…

Although IE 5.5 is the last browser (I think), so wouldn’t be much use now.

Which, I think, demonstrates how criminally useless it was in that memorising keyboard shortcuts was a better option than using the mouse to navigate the GUI.

Ah, but the thing is – while the RISC OS GUI is well thought out and does a lot of things in a manner that I wish existed on other machines, the time a mouse-centric UI is let down is the time that you are doing a lot of keyboard work. Consider, you are writing a document. You want a word in bold. Is it easier to enter Ctrl and B around the word, or to stop, grab the mouse, find the ‘B’ icon, and click it. Likewise to undo the bold.
To save the document periodically – is it easier to tap Ctrl and S (or F3 on RISC OS), or to reach for the mouse, call up the menu. Go to the File options, then select Save…?

I recall a long time ago (1997? 1998?) that I was tested with my competence on WORD. I scored badly. Why? The program that they used did not understand any keyboard shortcuts. It was a fake designed to look and feel like Word, but to assess your typing speed and accuracy.
I asked if they had actual Word on any of their computers. They said they couldn’t score me on it, so I said – just watch, don’t score. I repeated the test, a LOT more quickly. Told then that their test software was useless for people that actually know what they’re doing. They probably didn’t like that, but then I didn’t feel it was useful to “test” people using such a half-assed implementation of the software we’d be expected to know. Or maybe “secretaries” and “typists” up and down the country habitually stop and reach for the mouse every time they need something that isn’t a letter or a number?

There’s a fine line to a UI that is capable, and one that isn’t. When being tested (elsewhere), I had to rename a group of .DOC files to be .TXT. Let’s see, select a file, press F2, change the extension, yada yada….
…or go to DOS and RENAME *.DOC *.TXT.
Did it in five seconds, got told I “cheated”.

Sigh.

When Apple first developed OS X, the developers said “If someone goes looking for unix, but doesn’t find it, we failed. If someone doesn’t go looking for unix, but finds it, we failed.”

This is similar to how I feel about mice. If you want to use a mouse, it should be simple and intuitive. If you want to never use a mouse, you shouldn’t be penalised. This is what I consider a good GUI.

Told then that their test software was useless for people that actually know what they’re doing. They probably didn’t like that, but then I didn’t feel it was useful to “test” people using such a half-assed implementation of the software we’d be expected to know.

Presumably no job offer, but then if you worked for idiots then you’d probably be in jail for doing them physical harm out of frustration.

…or go to DOS and RENAME *.DOC *.TXT.
Did it in five seconds, got told I “cheated”.

Yep, definitely people who shouldn’t be out on their own.

4.1 is quite new and the x1000 is quite a pricey computer. Partly the reason why I was drawn to RO.

Me too! Although to be fair to him he signed up really early and got one for about a third of the retail price because he was in the Beta Developer Programme (or something like that). Yes I believe 4.1 was a new purchase and I will be interested to try it out the next time I pay him a visit…so far I only have one screenshot of the desktop and a text saying he was mega chuffed to get it working!

pound on your non-linear cherry MX switches?

Ah yes I remember them! I had to sell my keyboard to raise some cash recently so am back to a mushy rubberdome experience (or rattly laptop keys at work). Having not yet found my perfect keyboard layout I do plan on creating one with a bunch of diodes, some MX switches and a PIC but its so far still on my fantasty to-do list!

Although IE 5.5 is the last browser (I think), so wouldn’t be much use now.

How does that compare to NetSurf? :—P

I recall a long time ago (1997? 1998?) that I was tested with my competence on WORD. I scored badly.

You are not the only one to fall foul of stupidity surrounding computers… Around about that time I was still at school and was taking a class in IT. I foolishly thought I would be learning to program but the first lesson was something like “this is a mouse, this is a keyboard, this is the on button”. Honestly I was so bored I just started messing around only to be shouted at by the “IT Tutor” who clearly knew less than I did (and I had never even used Windows before…just the Amiga and a handful of BBCs…but I knew damn well what a “window” was and how to click on it). So rubbish was computing education in the 1990s its little wonder that British computing has gone down the pan. At work there are about 8 of us doing various types of programming or embedded stuff and we are all self-taught!

WfWG 3.11 with TCP/IP add-on if you want to have a chance of talking to the outside world…

But that would take the fun out of installing Trumpet Winsock by hand! I think there must be a DOS/Win3.1 image somewhere that I used with the Risc PC’s PC card to connect to the internet because I didn’t want to pay for Sergio Monesi’s PPPdriver (and later for the ANT Internet Suite)…and anyway, Netscape Navigator 3 Gold was a lot better than Webster and ArcWeb.

Maybe I have to look through the SyQuest media to find a backup…or if one of the earliest written CD-Rs (1997) can still be read.

And did you pay for Trumpet Winsock? Supposedly the vast, vast majority of copies of it were pirated!

I think the first GUI I ever used was GEM on my Amstrad.

I think it was probably the same with me. Amstrad PC-20 with a whopping 8 MHz CPU, half a meg of RAM, and MS-DOS 3.3. How did I ever cope? :)

Supposedly the vast, vast majority of copies of it were pirated!

Yes, and by ISPs distributing it without permission! I never used it myself. I think I got online in 1998 and stopped using DOS/WfWG by then.

I didn’t have it at home; we were a Win 95 early adopter and got our first Internet connection a couple of months later. We definitely had Trumpet at school but I have no idea whether they paid for it, or whether they just assumed that the ISP-provided version was licensed.

And did you pay for Trumpet Winsock? Supposedly the vast, vast majority of copies of it were pirated!

We had a licence for all students at university. Or so they told us at least!