Google will more reliably return what you're looking for than any hand-built documentation system.
That is missing the point. The Ctrl-P shortcut is for all those actions that you are aware of but use seldom enough to not warrant learning the keyboard shortcut. Or features that you are vaguely aware of should exist. The fact that it can provide a bit of documentation is a bonus. Google is a competitor to this kind of feature as much as your hard drive is a competitor to your memory.
Ubuntu got worse at 18.04. Logging in on desktop now requires "swiping up" with the mouse to get the password box. The "swiping" thing is to avoid problems with unwanted activation when the device is in your pocket. It's totally inappropriate to desktops. Then there's icon mania. I've recently converted from Blender 2.79 to Blender 2.82. Lots of new icons. They dim, they change color, they disappear as modes change,…
The UI changes in Blender 2.80 were exactly to get rid of the awful non-standard non-discoverable UI that has plagued the program from the start. It actually fixes a whole ton of issues that the article complains about! For instance, mouse button assignments are now sane (select on left button, not right) and Ctrl+S brings up an actual save file dialog with pretty unsurprising layout and behaviour (instead of that abomination that replaced the application window contents when pressing F12 and required an enter keypress to save - there was no button). There are many, many more of these changes and they were absolutely necessary.
The unfortunate side effect of this is that grumpy old users that were trained to accept the previous highly idiosyncratic UI started to complain because they have to relearn stuff. But it's worth it. And it opens up blender for more users.
> You can't Google an icon. I've been complaining about that since 1983, when an Apple evangelist came to my workplace to show off the Mac's icons. Nobody was able to guess what the box of Kleenex icon was, much to the frustration of the evangelist. Of course, there wasn't a Google then, but how do you look up a picture in a dictionary? We've reverted to hieroglyphic languages. (Ironically, hieroglyphs evolved over t…
> Ironically, hieroglyphs evolved over time into phonetic meanings. No, they didn't. The original creators of hieroglyphs knew how to use them to spell phonetically, but they didn't do it that often, they were satisfied with the old system (just as Chinese are now). It was a job of other people, who actually didn't know how to use hieroglyphs properly, to build a functioning alphabet on top of them. Two systems coexi…
Another rather infuriating example: On iOS Mail you now have to hit the "reply" icon to move a received email to another folder, mark it or print it. Very poor discoverability. They should at least have changed the icon when they changed it into a multiple purpose thing.
A lot of things in iOS are counterintuitive. Everything happens via a "Share" option. You want to do something, you click "Share" option and hope there's that option that you need.
By the way, on my 7 at least, there's a "Folder" icon right before the "Reply" icon that can also be used to move the message and you can add move option in one of the swipe gestures as well.
Not really, that's more a cliche. I set the clock on mine to tape programming when I wasn't there, and if anything it was probably easier than setting clock radios and watches now.
I was a child during the heyday of VCR, but I don't think any of my family was aware of timed recording. The whole concept just didn't exist in our lives until Tivo. Non-obvious features plus buying things second hand just meant you never learned everything your stuff did back before you could find manuals online.
My family could afford most things new, we had the manuals. I think my parents read them too, as they knew how to use the timed recording feature. My grandma knew how to use hers!
Many people would keep the manuals near the TV, so they could remind themselves how to use the rarely used features.
The Panasonic VCR we had included a barcode reader in the remote. The printed TV guide has barcodes for each program. This interface was very easy to use -- scan, and press "transmit".
On macOS you can search menu items via Shift–Command–QuestionMark (or by opening the Help menu). Most toolbar actions are also exposed as menu items, so this lets you essentially search for almost every function of every application that plugs into standard macOS frameworks. Some applications have features that extend beyond what can be surfaced through the standard menu bar but the infrastructure is there for "norma…
> Shift–Command–QuestionMark Oh my! I knew you could search through the menus. I didn't know there was a dedicated keyboard shortcut for it! I've been using MacOS for 10 years and never knew this… Thanks.
I also figured it out just now after 8 years of Mac usage. But I already knew that I don't know/use most of the dedicated Mac shortcuts (thought I think I should).
I read this and I can’t tell if the OP is joking or what. Information Architecture and User Experience Design have dramatically improved application development in the last ten years. This isn’t to say crappy apps aren’t built. They are. But when time and talent are leveraged properly, good things happen.
I'm also tired of articles that are like: "Here's some bad examples, therefore everything is bad".
It's missing the constructive part and probably finds the wrong audience.
> Anecdote: The first time this happened, I had no idea why it wasn't working and naturally started clicking on things and pressing buttons to try to get it to do the thing. I thereby discovered that you can get the password prompt by pressing Enter. One more anecdote. I found this screen for the first time when I got my laptop to demonstrate something to a student. I didn't know what to do, started to do random thin…
Windows 10 has the same mechanism, she might have learnt it from there first and just applied it here.
I’ve been actively using computers since CP/M. On windows, that I use daily, just random click and press and shake the mouse until I get a password prompt to login. Since there is slight delay until something happens after each action I’ve never been patient enough to figure out what exactly it is that works.
Google will more reliably return what you're looking for than any hand-built documentation system.
That is missing the point. The Ctrl-P shortcut is for all those actions that you are aware of but use seldom enough to not warrant learning the keyboard shortcut. Or features that you are vaguely aware of should exist. The fact that it can provide a bit of documentation is a bonus. Google is a competitor to this kind of feature as much as your hard drive is a competitor to your memory.
You're right actually. I was missing the point. Yes, this would be very useful.
I'm on 19.10, and I'm quite disappointed. Exposing all windows as thumbnails is a big regression compared to Unity. It feels heavyweight, and just doesn't work anymore for window navigation. Pressing the app icon on the side bar brings up small, equal-sized window previews on top of each other without spatial information. Consequently I have now tens of open terminal session and browser windows. Global menu is gone,…
I was on the same boat and decided to install KDE Plasma. Very very happy with the result, the UI dark theme is very beautiful and all shortcuts and UI elements work the way "old" UIs did (unlike freaking Ubuntu 18 and 19 which changed everything for 0 reason). https://kde.org/plasma-desktop It was quite easy to install and everything worked out-of-the-box. I just customized some widgets, the dark theme, icon colors…
Just to make it clear: after I posted this , I did some research and it turns out I am using KDE Cinnamon actually... I installed KDE, and now I have options when in the login page to select which "session" I want: Ubuntu, Unity, Plasma, Cinnamon, Wayland... I have Cinnamon by default, and it is indeed my favourite... Plasma seems very cool, but too different from what I am used to... I might play with it later when I have more time though.