[XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort

[Michiel Kamermans]

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. 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.

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. 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". Then, once 
you're familiar enough with it to realise that even a plain text editor 
on a command prompt works just fine (even if it's more work), looking at 
better editors that take away the UI familiarity is no longer 
objectionable. It's basically common sense. Familiarity + a little bit 
of new, then shift focus until the new is familiar, then drop the 
original hook you needed to convince people it was worth getting 
familiar with the new.

- Mike "Pomax" Kamermans
nihongoresources.com