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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
#82The 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.
While I agree that adding fuzzy searching and natural language discoverability are great, there are some other pretty important differences.
I thought a lot about this line:
> you had the best of the terminal paired with the best of graphical interfaces
Maybe there are many parts of a terminal that are “the best” for different people or use cases, but to me the key feature of the terminal is the ability to compose, extend, and abstract. Use a command with certain options a lot? Turn it into an alias or one-liner script. Use a pattern of commands a lot? Turn it into a script. Use a particular command really a lot? Add it as a custom keybinding. And it's pretty easy -- once you've paid the price of learning to use the shell at all, you are ready to start writing basic scripts. Granted, the price of entry to learn the shell is high compared to command palettes. But there is so much there that command palettes are still missing.
Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
ctrl+k → focus the search bar ctrl+l → focus the address bar
Why do people use a separate search bar, when typing the search query into the address bar works the same? Unless you're often searching for strings that look like URLs?
You don't lose your search query with a separate bar.
Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again
#84Every 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
KDE also does it: https://pointieststick.com/2021/05/21/this-week-in-kde-kcomm...
Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again
#85Something 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…
I agree. I've been learning MS Word for many years at the level of creating my own templates and styles, using macros, assigning my own shortcut keys to building blocks, and using snippets in conjunction with AHK. My documents look exactly like Latex files with SVG images and nice look, but with __so much__ less trouble. Anyone who thinks Word is not capable of typesetting excellent documents has not given it a shot.
If MS would add something like VS Code's command palette to Word, it would blow Latex outta the water. I've tried Latex (in VS Code) and I was able to write my own snippets using Regex and "prettify" the code. I miss those things in Word.
Plus, Word must have something like settings.json where I can see the list of all custom shortcuts that I've set. And I also wish Word Find would use the typical Regex to find things in text.
I never thought one day I like Word, but this software has been a life saver (can't say that so much about PowerPoint and the rest of the office suite though).
Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again
#86Something 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…
I'm a "power user" who can eek into the terminal and light programming as needed.
We're not disappearing, per se, just being utterly ignored. Mass market is moving towards methods of turning all computing into a phone, with vendor lock in and the user as nothing but a consumer who needs to pay to do things with their own devices.
I am unprofitable as I do not need to pay for an app/macro/SAAS to do things but also don't do those things as a business and therefore will not be paying to outsource the costs of doing those things.
In truth, I am in this area in many areas, from computing to kitchen appliances and grills. It feels that global capitalism is highly antagonistic to products and services that empower users to do things themselves.
Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again
#87Every 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.
As an infrequent Mac user, how is this stuff discoverable? The OS seems willfully obfuscated to cater for some notional lowest common denominator user. Whenever I find myself using someone else's Mac, they never know any keyboard shortcuts or keyboard-plus-mouse-button context menus. It's bewildering and wildly frustrating. I find myself asking "surely this isn't how you always do this, there must be a better way?" but I only ever get shrugs in reply.
Admittedly, these are non-techy folks. But they are daily Mac users. It's weird, like the OS discourages curiosity and experimentation.
And then there are those times when I stupidly assume things, like how it will surely be trivial to remote desktop from my laptop into a Mac while someone else is logged into a different account on the Mac. What a shit-show. My reaction: "are you f*cking kidding with how horrendous this is?" Mac owner: shrug.
Bah. Now I'm just getting narky. Rant over :)
Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again
#88Every 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.
As an infrequent Mac user, how is this stuff discoverable? The OS seems willfully obfuscated to cater for some notional lowest common denominator user. Whenever I find myself using someone else's Mac, they never know any keyboard shortcuts or keyboard-plus-mouse-button context menus. It's bewildering and wildly frustrating. I find myself asking "surely this isn't how you always do this, there must be a better way?" b…
Most of the keyboard shortcuts for a particular application are right next to the menu item. The command palette I’m talking about is clearly visible in the help menu: my theory is that people no longer browse the menus of a new application the way I would back in the NT 4.0 days.
The system-wide shortcuts are a bit less discoverable but, they’re there if you know where to look: either search “keyboard shortcuts” in the os help system or go to system preferences > keyboard > shortcuts.
Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again
#89Something 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…
I agree. I've been learning MS Word for many years at the level of creating my own templates and styles, using macros, assigning my own shortcut keys to building blocks, and using snippets in conjunction with AHK. My documents look exactly like Latex files with SVG images and nice look, but with __so much__ less trouble. Anyone who thinks Word is not capable of typesetting excellent documents has not given it a shot.…
Word is not my cup of tea, but I've seen people doing CD covers, with multiple folding, the art on the back of box, on the CD itself, all in Word. They exported a PDF, sent to the printer and it worked. I've learned to respect this beast, thankfully, from a safe distance.
Re: Command palettes: how typing commands became the norm again
#90Something 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…
It's because general purpose PCs aren't as profitable as consoles. Companies want to make phones, tablets and computers into "app players" in order to extract maximum profits from app stores and subscription services.
There is no room for power users in that market, only passive consumers. Besides, power users might be motivated to circumvent their systems and do things that companies can't extract rent on.