From: "Filippo A. Salustri" <salustri@ryerson.ca>
To: Bastien <bzg@altern.org>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Org expert mode?
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 05:35:42 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <AANLkTinxBMAevtegahBYLoH0OqC07XSU37yaxWZ6s=ud@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87vczre1eb.fsf@altern.org>
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2679 bytes --]
I wonder about the complexity associated with adding an expert mode.
My area is design, and one of my pet peeves about all things designed is how
they tend to increase in complexity for the sake of extending their scope,
without much attention being paid to the brittleness that accumulates
collaterally.
Since complexity is a non-linear thing, adding even one time element can
increase it, and brittleness, significantly.
I think - and I would suggest - that it can all be done with documentation.
That is, one can lay out doc so that the complex things just aren't staring
one in the face. If the doc were properly designed, users just wouldn't
know about the 'power' stuff and so wouldn't be prone to getting overwhelmed
by it. And this keeps the code itself less complex.
I even think this applies to the matter of more compact messaging.
Just a thought.
Cheers.
Fil
On 10 March 2011 05:05, Bastien <bzg@altern.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Org tries to stay as simple/accessible as possible for newbie and as
> complete/flexible as possible for power users.
>
> The documentation and the UI are central for this: the documentation
> should promote core features, document complex ones, and give pointers
> on how to hack Org -- it does that already IMO; the UI should give
> access to core features and give hints on complex ones, so that the
> user can learn more.
>
> I've just added the ability to run a custom function for bulk agenda
> actions (thanks to Puneeth for the patch!) This is clearly for power
> users -- or those who are willing to take the time to find functions
> that we might document in Worg.
>
> So I naturally thought of something like an "Org Expert mode": when
> turned off, the UI would *not* give access to complex features and
> perhaps display more helpful messages on simple ones; when turned on,
> Org would have a less verbose UI (think of the C-c C-e window, do we
> really want to *read* it all the times?) and give access to all the
> complex features.
>
> This is really just a call for ideas/comments -- I wonder if people
> already came accross such an idea and and what they think.
>
> I'm myself not convinced: it's a good thing that Org doesn't need an
> Expert mode so far, it means newbies are not confused by the UI, and
> experts are not frustrated by it either. But I expect neat features
> can emerge from the discussion.
>
> Thanks for your thoughts!
>
> --
> Bastien
>
>
--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: salustri@ryerson.ca
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3388 bytes --]
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2011-03-10 10:35 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2011-03-10 10:05 Org expert mode? Bastien
2011-03-10 10:11 ` Bastien
2011-03-10 10:36 ` Rainer M Krug
2011-03-20 2:08 ` Matt Lundin
2011-03-21 7:25 ` Rainer M Krug
2011-03-10 12:38 ` Greg Troxel
2011-03-10 14:14 ` John Hendy
2011-03-10 10:35 ` Filippo A. Salustri [this message]
2011-03-10 15:30 ` Julien Danjou
2011-03-10 17:43 ` Scott Randby
2011-03-10 18:46 ` Samuel Wales
2011-03-10 23:46 ` Suvayu Ali
2011-03-10 19:33 ` Robert Pluim
2011-03-10 21:25 ` Joost Helberg
2011-03-10 21:41 ` Eric Schulte
2011-03-10 23:22 ` Bernt Hansen
2011-03-11 8:28 ` Bastien
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2011-03-10 13:12 Rustom Mody
2011-03-10 13:44 ` Rainer M Krug
2011-03-10 14:11 ` Matthew Sauer
2011-03-10 22:37 ` Christian Moe
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
List information: https://www.orgmode.org/
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to='AANLkTinxBMAevtegahBYLoH0OqC07XSU37yaxWZ6s=ud@mail.gmail.com' \
--to=salustri@ryerson.ca \
--cc=bzg@altern.org \
--cc=emacs-orgmode@gnu.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
Code repositories for project(s) associated with this public inbox
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/org-mode.git
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).