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Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

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Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#11

Post by themitigating »

blondin wrote: post #8

> "People need to feel that they can try things without damaging the system," recommended Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. well, for what it's worth, many modern apps aren't following that guideline. for a long time i have questioned the disappearance of tooltips in user interfaces. especially when everybody seems to come up with their own iconography nowadays. the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't ho…

A gui combined with tooltips is one the easiest to learn interfaces. I have a very bad memory and GUIs show me what my options are. It's like typing a command with --help except it's always there

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#12

Post by underwater »

The article paints command palettes as a return to terminal inputs. However there are two massive differences. Firstly, the use of fuzzy search and natural language makes the commands discoverable. Secondly, there is a feedback mechanism that shows what the command will do before it's run. Together, these massively lower the learning curve.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#14

Post by thrower123 »

JadeNB wrote: post #4
thrower123 wrote: post #2

I hate this trend. Give me back menus and toolbars. I avoid using VS Code for this reason.

> I hate this trend. Give me back menus and toolbars. Everyone has their own preferences; personally, every time I open Word, I am confused and disoriented and have no idea where to look for what I want. I think it's best for no-one to try to impose their UI preference on everyone, and for all of us just to use the software with which we find it easiest to interact.

This is the way everyone not responsible for creating it has always viewed the Office Ribbon UI. Most cursed creation in software.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#15

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #13

Every macOS application has a command palette in the help menu: command-shift-/ will bring it up and you can incrementally search all the commands in the menus.

This is one of those tiny seemingly inconsequential things that keeps me hooked on Mac OS

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#16

Post by underwater »

thrower123 wrote: post #2

I hate this trend. Give me back menus and toolbars. I avoid using VS Code for this reason.

These paradigms can be complementary. Menus and toolbars for when the user is browsing and they don't know what they want, command bars for when the user knows what they want but not how to get there, and shortcut keys for when they know what they want and how to get there.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#17

Post by epberry »

underwater wrote: post #12

The article paints command palettes as a return to terminal inputs. However there are two massive differences. Firstly, the use of fuzzy search and natural language makes the commands discoverable. Secondly, there is a feedback mechanism that shows what the command will do before it's run. Together, these massively lower the learning curve.

This is a great observation. In the end, the goal of a terminal usable by people and machines was folly. Machines can use the shell, humans can use the command prompt.

Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again

#18

Post by karaterobot »

blondin wrote: post #8

> "People need to feel that they can try things without damaging the system," recommended Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. well, for what it's worth, many modern apps aren't following that guideline. for a long time i have questioned the disappearance of tooltips in user interfaces. especially when everybody seems to come up with their own iconography nowadays. the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't ho…

> the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't hover or have tooltips on mobile". they are trying to achieve uniformity between mobile and desktop.

Achieving uniformity by reducing the user experience to the platforms' lowest common denominator. Not the best solution!

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