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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

#61

Post by jakear »

wodenokoto wrote: post #10
thrower123 wrote: post #2

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

One of the best features of OSX is that programs have menu bars. I didn't even know they had removed the menus from VS Code on other platforms. I still can't find anything in word, except on mac, where there is an actual menu. Anyway, the removing of menus was not caused by the addition of command palettes. I think the history is that microsoft believed icons was easier than text, so they made the ribbons, and then f…

VS code has menus on all platforms. All platforms also provide native menus. (Work on VSCode)

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

#62

Post by worldsayshi »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #41
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…

I don't understand the relationship you are suggesting between tooltips and feeling that you can try things without damaging the system.

Either you have a tooltip explaining the function or you have to test it to understand what it does. But to test something you want to know it doesn't cause problems.

I feel like this is some fundamental UX dimension here. Cost and risk of learning. How much time do I have to use to learn all the commands or find the right command and if I have to try it what is the risk of breaking something?

Just as relevant in cli applications.

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

#63

Post by rz2k »

seanwilson wrote: post #42

On Windows, you could press ALT to navigate the menu bar: each menu item would have a letter underlined to tell you how to select it, and when you picked a letter the menu would expand and each new item would have an underlined item etc. So you quickly discover and commit to muscle memory that ALT + F + S would select File then Save. This worked for dialog pop-up options as well so you didn't have to click. You can't…

Especially in Excel, using the keyboard to do everything is vastly superior in Windows.

However in MacOS `command-shift-/` (⌘?) immediately shifts focuses to the help menu where you can begin typing to navigate directly to any command that appears in an application's menus, without needing to know where the command is hierarchically organized. It's very fast, and seems to work everywhere.

I have Karabiner-Elements configured to register ⌘? whenever I press and release the left control alone without using it as a modifier of any other key. The `to_if_alone` condition in Karabiner-Elements is one of my favorite ways to re-use all of the modifier keys to invoke special commands. It would be great if I could figure out how to do that in Windows.

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

#64

Post by worldsayshi »

ok_dad wrote: post #48
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…

see: the blackberry storm, which had hovering with a touch screen. I loved that phone.

How? Did you long press on it?

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

#65

Post by [deleted] »

miffy900 wrote: post #46
seanwilson wrote: post #42

On Windows, you could press ALT to navigate the menu bar: each menu item would have a letter underlined to tell you how to select it, and when you picked a letter the menu would expand and each new item would have an underlined item etc. So you quickly discover and commit to muscle memory that ALT + F + S would select File then Save. This worked for dialog pop-up options as well so you didn't have to click. You can't…

It is annoying, but CMD+? (help menu search) I think makes up for it. It's far more useful for when you're navigating an unfamiliar interface.

[deleted]

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

#66

Post by jackson1442 »

nerdponx wrote: post #31
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.

It also possibly increases discoverability even compared to a traditional GUI, because you can scroll through the list and see things you otherwise might not have known about.

This is absolutely my favorite thing about command pallets. Any time I need to do anything in vscode I just type something close to what I'm trying to do and scroll until I see something that looks right. Way easier than just about anything else.

macOS has a similar feature for the menu bar- every app has a Help item that allows you to search all menus at the same time. It doesn't work as well as a command pallet but it is incredibly useful for menu-heavy apps.

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

#67

Post by worldsayshi »

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.

Is love to see a command palette terminal fusion. Thought about this many times.

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

#68

Post by worldsayshi »

nerdponx wrote: post #31
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.

It also possibly increases discoverability even compared to a traditional GUI, because you can scroll through the list and see things you otherwise might not have known about.

I think there's a great potential in command palette like interfaces especially if there was a library that helped you build command palette grammars.

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

#69

Post by barrkel »

worldsayshi wrote: post #64
ok_dad wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

see: the blackberry storm, which had hovering with a touch screen. I loved that phone.

How? Did you long press on it?

Judging from old reviews of the phone, it looks like a positional proximity sensor. The screen had a blue hover glow where your finger approached the screen.

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

#70

Post by The5thElephant »

tambourine_man wrote: post #43

Something I've been noticing lately is the disappearance of the “power user”. Someone who's not a programer, but has learned lots of smart and efficient ways to getting their computer work done over the years. Shortcuts (keyboard or otherwise), click-hold-cmd-tab-drop or similar patterns, tags/labels for deep file organization, etc. It seems like there's now a much wider gap between the smartphone tap-only user and…

There is the Shortcuts app for iOS and macOS now that replaces the old Automator app and provides a friendly GUI for some basic to more advanced automation and allows for AppleScript for more complex requirements. I don't know really how widespread its use is, but there are some passionate communities of people making and sharing shortcuts that does seem to extend beyond the "terminal ubergeeks" into more typical (albeit efficiency obsessed) consumers.
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