[Gllug] is KMAIL a good enough client for gllug?

[Steve Nelson]

On 9/8/05, paul <paul at thinksolution.net> wrote:
> On Thursday 08 September 2005 16:31, Nix wrote:
> >. I went through my graphics-freak
> > ooh-look-it's-GUI-it-must-be-cool phase when I was about fifteen
> 
> you continually misinterpret everything I've been saying

Not really - lots of people really did go through a 'wow its GUI'
phase, especially if we'd spent a lot of time in a purely textual
environment before.  And many of us have moved through that phase,
because often a purely textual environment is more suitable, less
inhibiting, faster, less resource intensive etc etc etc than a
graphical equivalent.

> I'm just saying - and lets put a cap on it now -
> I'm just saying that these days I am more used to working with graphical
> interfaces - generally they tend to to be self explanatory.

Actually often they don't.  For very simple tasks 'click on new' yes,
they are intuitive.  To change a number of detailed settings, point
and chase, hide and seek mouse effort is very unintuitive, and vi
/etc/myapp.conf provides a well documented, clear and easy way to make
changes.

Its also open to debate that text-based or curses-based tools are
unintuitive.  Taking mutt as an example:

Initial screen:

q:Quit  d:Del  u:Undel  s:Save  m:Mail  r:Reply  g:Group 

The only thing which isn't obvious there is group.
 
Let's send an email.

1) Your hands are on the keyboard.  It even says 'm for mail' at the
top of the screen.  Press m (note no need to press return)
2) You're automatically given asked 'ok - to whom?'.  Enter the
person, press enter;
3) You're asked: 'ok - whats it about?'  Enter the subject, press enter.
4) You're now you're in an editor - well - you want to write an email,
right?  What is more appropriate?  And if you're a
programmer/sysadmin/techie/geek (and 99% of us on this list are) the
ability to write emails in the same tool you use for the rest of your
job (in my case vi) is a glorious benefit.
5) Ok email written - so save & exit the edit - not obvious in vi, I
grant you, but vi may not be the default editor.
6) We now have a summary of the mail, and little instructions at the
top, which have changed, as the context has changed:

y:Send  q:Abort  t:To  c:CC  s:Subj  a:Attach file  d:Descrip  ?:Help

7) Ok we dont want to do anything else (although using your term, its
pretty self explanatory if we did).  Press y.  Mail gets sent, and
we're returned to the start.

Pretty obvious really - contains all the features a 'modern' email
client needs, and was fast and easy to use.

Now to make an (admittedly straw-man) comparison, let's do the same in Outlook.

1) Your hands are on the keyboard.
2) Move mouse (oh - my hands were on the keyboard) to the picture of
an email, and click on it.  Yes I know I could type c-n but why have a
mouse if we're not going to use it?
3) New window pops up (ewww - more mess and loss of screen
real-estate) - ok - helpfully its put the cursor in the to section,
and has moved focus.
4) Move hands back to keyboard.
5) Type in the intended recipient and press enter.
6) Oh - we're still on the names section - it wants more names.  Odd,
if I wanted more names I would have provided more names at the time of
entry - enter doesn't mean I want to do the same again, it means I've
finished; It means at the very least 'carriage return' but no, we
couldn't adhere to common standards.
7) Ok, so I'll have to move the cursor.  I could use tab, but a) we
have a mouse b) I might not know that tab will move to a new field c)
I don't necessarily want to tab to the rest of the fields - who said I
want ccs, bccs etc.  So I ....
8) Move hands to the mouse.
9) Click in the subject column.
10) Move hands back to the keyboard and enter the subject - press
return - oh good, its moved me into the editory space.  How
consistent?  I thought we'd already agreed that pressing enter means
'I want to do that again - you've changed your mind?'
11) This is a nasty horrid experience having to type and move the
cursor around in this edity thing.  For a start when I do the sort of
natural things I do in an editor, it spews random letters and
punctuation at me, or worse still asks me if I want to keep my
message, and pops up a window in front of what I was doing!  Yes I
could use a massively bloated word processor to compose my emails, but
that still is inefficient clumsy and slow.  But, ok -  point made - I
write my email.
12) Now lets not even go into what I'd have to do if I wanted to save
my document - which is the  natural thing to do in an editor... that
really becomes a mouse-oriented find-and-seek game.  Lets assume I am
clever enough to realise that the objective of the exercise is to send
an email, and outlook doesn't think I want the extra effort of saving
my document.
13) Ok - lets send the email.  How do I do that? Ah - there's a
picture of an envelope and the word send up there.
14) Move hand to mouse.
15) Click on send.

Phew....

Don't tell me that was easier, more modern, faster or more
self-explanatory, please!!

> better things to do with my time

Oh - the graphical tool saved time did it?

<snip>

> you seem to take it personally that I have a preference or
> need that is different to yours.

No - we're generally analytical people who try to get points across,
and who will analyse point by point what you say, raising a
counter-point.

>  Just how much older than fifteen are you?

Not sure how this analyses a point and raises a counter point.

[Progams designed in the 90s]

> ...can look however it likes as long as it supports a mouse 

Which pretty much any text-based program running in X will.

> and I dont have
> spend long working out how to create and send an email

Well as above - its very quick and easy.

> like the art critic said - I don't know much about art but I know what
> I like

Nice!  I feel the same.  I don't know much about interface design. 
But I know that when I am in my computer context (to use GTD
phraseology) I am generally interacting with text and keyboard, and in
that context I dislike icons, pretty pictures, little dogs that wag
their tails, paper-clips that talk to me, and having to move my hands
from their home to some rodent!

ATB.

S.
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