Re: testing is broken
On Thu, Apr 05, 2001 at 10:27:46PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> > How about the horrible user interface?
>
> Once you get used to the interface it's very useful actually.
In the general case, Linux and Debian, when newbie users complain about
things that are hard to do for them, they can be pointed to the appropriate
documentation, which is mostly easily accessible.
With dselect, this is not the case. The manual page is sparse, the `dselect
Documentation for Beginners' document isn't referred to by anything so it's
unknown to the beginners, and despite what the intro "help" screen says,
there isn't really much online help available. Those help screens are not
organized in a straightforward way, either, it's all cramped, more like
reference cards. Also, one doesn't scroll the screens, instead you have to
press a key to switch to the next screen.
Additionally, the ways to access the online help are arcane, for example,
the spacebar key exits help, whereas that same key is used to scroll the
screen in selection screen (and in all other programs). The key for the next
page of the help is `.', which is also much less intuitive than spacebar, or
down arrow, or page down key. Pressing any other key than those that are
bound to an action returns you to the main help menu, which is also not
helpful (imagine a newbie trying to read help and accidentally pressing the
down key after reading two help screens: "oh, darn, I'm back at the start...
hmm, on what page was I?" -- not quite the desired situation).
YMMV, IMHO, flames to /dev/null, whatever. And yes, I know that changing
keybindings wouldn't be nice to the old users. <sigh>
--
Digital Electronic Being Intended for Assassination and Nullification
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