[XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort

[Khaled Hosny]

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 10:42:11PM -0700, Michiel Kamermans wrote:
> On 9/27/2010 8:53 PM, Khaled Hosny wrote:
> >
> >You know, because Windows has the most consistent user interface an OS
> >ever had.
> >
> >(From some one who is yet to see two "native" Windows applications that
> >behave the same)
>  Yeah, yeah, look, my name isn't "Gates", but in windows the idea
> is, and virtually every applicaiton sticks to this, "if there's
> multiple windows, you get them INSIDE a master frame". I'm not going
> to argue that every single app developer went "yes windows design
> style guide, I will unquestioningly do what you say" but the vast
> majority of important applications obeys this simple unwritten rule.
> 
> I never said TeXWork was a bad program - it's great. But i annoys
> the hell out of me that it launches two applications when it says
> it's one. You close the right application, the left application
> doesn't close. Wtf? I thought I was running one program? So it's two
> applications... you close the left applicaiton, the right one does
> close. Again, wtf? So it IS one program? This is not good design for
> a windows application. It doesn't matter that some other people
> write good programs with bad UIs on windows, too.

Some? Almost every Windows app I've seen is UI design crime of its own,
and yet it bothered no one and people are happily using them every day,
what it is so intrinsically bad with two windows per app that you think
no Windows user, who have tolerated every horrible UI on the planet,
will not tolerate?

> A worthwhile
> program uses the visual semantics that come with the OS it's made
> for. Stick both the windows side by side in a master frame when the
> code detects it's being compiled for Windows, make them visible and
> invisible via checkboxes in view/window->source and
> view/window->final or something, and presto, the entire gripe's
> gone. Now it's a cross platform editor that respects the user
> expectation of the vast majority of people who are going to be new
> to TeX.

You know, TeXWorks happen to be free software with a bug tracker and
mailing lists where you can suggest improvements, or better supply
patches (no grantee it will be accepted, though).

> Some people love TeXWork because it's a better alternative to
> everything they tried before, but that's because *they've tried
> everything else and didn't like it*. It's almost impossible to miss
> that means you're hardly new at TeX, but that you're a long time
> user who's sampled everything there is to sample over an extensive
> period of time and settled on TeXWorks because it lets you get the
> job done. That's great, if TeXWorks is where you ended up, awesome,
> it's a really good program, even on windows. It also breaks the idea
> of a single application that people that are new to TeX, and use
> windows, will be used to. When you're new to something, you don't
> want a program that behaves completely different from all the other
> big programs you use.

Yes, because every other program actually behaves the same; have the same
set of short cut, the same common top menu in the menu bar (if it has a
menu bar to begin with), and the same common items under the same menus,
and the same way to place tabs, and the same action icon and ... Again,
I feel to see why one window per app is so important that no application
should ever break it while every other UI inconsistency is tolerable.

> You want to give someone new to TeX a familiar
> base first, so they don't tune out going "this is so radically
> different that I cannot get comfortable with it".

I did not know that Windows users are so brain dead, at least not the
TeX using fraction. As some one not-so-wise once said, "if you treat
your users as idiots, only idiots will use your software."

Regards,
 Khaled

-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer