[Design] Command-line for dummies

[Mimi Yin]

Status bar, interesting idea.

Well...we need a search box anyway.

(I'm not sure how geeky it is) I mean if you count the google search  
box as a user's conception of cli, people are basically living in a  
pseudo command line world today, just a more forgiving one because  
you don't have to be exact about your syntax :o)

What's the difference between typing in "weather" to get your weather  
versus typing in firefox to launch your web browser? Andi? i know you  
have something to say about this.

I'm not advocating replacing GUIs with CLIs for dummies, just  
supplementing them.

Maybe it can be a show/hide feature or a plug-in you activate from  
the Test menu? But I think our early adopters will by definition be  
geeky? so it wouldn't hurt to leave it out in the open in the near-term?

Mimi

On Jan 6, 2006, at 2:51 PM, Philippe Bossut wrote:

> Interesting idea. 2 points though:
> - on the command language: looks like this needs to be very much  
> like the CPIA Scripting introduced by Donn. May be a level of  
> abstraction above it (enriching what Donn did basically with a set  
> of well thought out primitives to that user don't have to learn  
> Chandler's DOM and full fledged Python to do something) but still  
> using Python syntax, like having Python command line available in  
> Chandler basically
> - on the UI: it will be a geeky (dummy geeks may be but still...)  
> feature. We may not want to get it to use extra real estate. What  
> about allowing typing in the status bar? If you click in there  
> you'd get a ">" prompt and be ready to type a command. The good  
> thing is that the status of the command will display right there.
>
> Note that other apps do have a similarly "hidden" command-line mode  
> for dummies. Browsers for instance allow javascript to be typed in  
> the address bar. e.g. type the following in Safari, FireFox or IE  
> address bar:
>
>    javascript: alert(navigator.userAgent)
>
> You get the browser user agent string. Saved my life a million  
> times...
>
> Cheers,
> - Philippe
>
> Mimi Yin wrote:
>
>> What would it take to implement a really simple cli-for-dummies UI  
>> in  the near-term?
>>
>> 1. Big text box at the bottom of the summary pane.
>> 2. If the keyboard focus is NOT in the detail view, typing text   
>> automatically moves your focus to the text box.
>> 3. The default action is search
>> 4. Other actions you can invoke with commands which are displayed  
>> in  grey beneath the text box - - Navigating to a different app  
>> area,  collection or date in the calendar
>> - Labeling/tagging the selected item in the summary pane
>> - Creating a new item (just notes for now)
>>
>> All aided by auto-complete. I'm not asking about a particular   
>> implementation or design, but just some some rough implementation  
>> of  the idea.
>>
>> Mimi
>>
>>
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