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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

#121

Post by jamal-kumar »

imgabe wrote: post #100
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…

I can't speak to every field but in Architecture/Engineering the software became a lot less power user friendly with the switch from AutoCAD to Revit. AutoCAD had a command line. You could pick commands from the menu, or type them directly. You could make shortcuts for the commands. From there it was a short jump to stringing together several typed commands into a short script. There was a built-in scripting language…

My grandpa was an engineer who used AutoLISP a lot to automate away a ton of work they were having to do back in the 80s and early 90s, his coworkers loved him because he got menial things done easier for everyone. I could only imagine tasks like what they were doing involving complex fluid mechanics to be something you'd have to have a programming environment to get at.

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

#122

Post by wizzwizz4 »

jdhn wrote: post #97
Xevi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Yes you can. The generally agreed upon way to do this is by long pressing whatever you want to see a tooltip over.

The problem with this is how you indicate to users that tooltips exist via the long press action. I personally never knew that long press to show a tooltip was the "generally agreed upon way" to show tooltips, and it would be a lot simpler to just have a button label.

How do you indicate to users that they can right-click on a computer mouse? You don't; they just know it. If they don't, their friends and family will teach them.

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

#124

Post by jakear »

fnord77 wrote: post #114
jakear wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best option is to provide choice. Icons with Labels by default, show keyboard shortcut on hover. Want just icons? There’s a config option for that. Want just labels? Also an option. Want no toolbar at all, and only use shortcuts? Also an option.

abundance of choice is inversely correlated with satisfaction https://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bschwar1/Sci.Amer.pdf

That applies to when a choice must be made before the user can proceed, or when making once choice has an associated opportunity cost that prevents/discourages the user from making other choices. If the user is presented with sane defaults from the start and can also try toggling a checkbox in a settings UI to instantly test alternatives, the study does not apply.

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

#125

Post by frosted-flakes »

marcodiego wrote: post #23

Ubuntu had that with their Unity UI since at least 2012: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yzdfLbKQy08/XMqOc0TkS0I/AAAAAAAAV80/oe6jGTCdAiwLQrk5cfI6e82TAyo2y6fFACLcBGAs/s1600/Screenshot%2Bfrom%2B2019-05-02%2B13-29-46.png https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1SSxfxI-2WQ/XMqNh1byhBI/AAAAAAAAV8s/uf3v9x3_mP806tPp-chXntSUNIuyD5f1gCLcBGAs/s1600/Screenshot%2Bfrom%2B2019-05-02%2B13-25-33.png https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oNj-HJIiWIc/XMqRaQZUjaI/…

If you take your URLs out of code blocks they'll actually show up as links.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yzdfLbKQy08/XMqOc0TkS0I/AAAAAAAAV...

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1SSxfxI-2WQ/XMqNh1byhBI/AAAAAAAAV...

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oNj-HJIiWIc/XMqRaQZUjaI/AAAAAAAAV...

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

#126

Post by CornCobs »

_dain_ wrote: post #30
thrower123 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

counterpoint: I'm an Excel power-user and I really like the ribbon UI. when you use the alt mode you can fly through it and opportunistically/incrementally learn the keyboard shortcuts.

Something that irks me a bit is that the UI (with it's animations) can't keep up with pressing keyboard shortcuts. For example in word to change font size you could just do Alt+h+fs+ but you can't just press it as a single chord, you kinda need to wait for the UI to focus on the correct fields to make sure you're at the correct place

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

#128

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

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.

Menus are great for discoverability because they show you all the options in an organized way, but they're slow. They're excellent for rarely used commands.

Keyboard shortcuts are fast but they require memorization. They're great for something you do many times a day.

Command pallets fit in the middle. They're most perfect for the niche where you use the command often enough to remember that it exists and at least roughly know the name, but nowhere near often enough to warrant memorizing a keyboard shortcut. Especially for text editors where you're already in typing position, they're much faster than menus and not that much slower than shortcuts, and you can give access to much more commands than you can define reasonable shortcuts for.

And as you said, CLI with the precise syntax requirements is simply the worst.

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

#130

Post by iambateman »

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…

I think this is right. To me, there are a few reasons:

- there are more formal solutions available. I don’t need a macro for automated responses because Freshdesk does that for me.

- culture has moved toward seeing apps as smaller on average (except for MSFT) and not extensible. I think our attitudes toward mobile have had a big effect.

- a lot of people get as much utility as they expect out of their machines unmodified.

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