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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

#31

Post by nerdponx »

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.

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

#32

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#33

Post by nerdponx »

_dain_ wrote: post #28
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.

zsh completions with fzf replicates somewhat in the terminal

Ironically, Zsh has a huge amount of thorough documentation, which is badly undiscoverable due to the "conversational" writing style as well as the utter lack of "semantic" search ability in man pages.

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

#34

Post by marginalia_nu »

thrower123 wrote: post #2

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

I like a good command line, but the whole search box thing is annoying me to no end because it not predictable.

If I type three characters and press enter, it shouldn't matter if I wait 0.5 or 1.8 seconds before I press enter. But with this mechanic, it typically does. What is "set _rem_inder" one time is "_rem_ove all files" the next time.

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

#35

Post by godDLL »

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.

That's right. Did you see/use Fish as a shell?

I'm having much fun scripting in the Fish language at the moment, and using the shell in interactive programs.

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

#36

Post by Const-me »

starkd wrote: post #5
thrower123 wrote: post #2

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

It's easier to type commands when you have to do it alot. It uses muscle memory rather than deplete your attention span. Might be difficult at first, but it's easier once you get used to it.

For the use cases you’re talking about, I prefer keyboard shortcuts.

No need to click search bar, or look at the search result list. One only needs to memorize, or setup, a keyboard shortcut like Ctrl+Shift+M, and with muscle memory it will consistently take well under 1 second. Search UX is slower, needs more clicks or key presses.

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

#38

Post by donatj »

Rhino 3D allows you to type in anything you can do with the mouse. You just start typing, no shortcut first. It's feels like a beautiful marriage of powerful command line app and equally powerful and pretty UI.

I've been using it regularly since around 2002 and this functionality has always been core to its being. It makes discoverability hugely simple, just start typing what I want to do.

I've always wondered why more tools haven't had similar functionality. I'm glad to see the growing population of command palletes some 20 years later.

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

#39

Post by memco »

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.

Yeah, this is a great feature! I would like to have an option to move the menu into the into the window under the toolbar or floating like the spotlight window since it's a little less eye travel, but nonetheless it's very handy to have the ability to activate menu items without having a dedicated keyboard shortcut.

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

#40

Post by tshaddox »

karaterobot wrote: post #18
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!

It actually doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea to me, at least under the assumption that you’re not going to maintain an entirely separate UI for the mobile and desktop apps (which would be ideal, but is incredibly expensive and tends to result in broken and missing features on one or both platforms even for companies with enormous budgets). I would argue that “reducing to the lowest common denominator” actually is one of the more reasonable solutions among the feasible options. It certainly isn’t a great solution to create a UI that is impossible to understand without tooltips and ship that UI to mobile devices without the tooltips!
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