v6 update: simple filters

[nikos]

All dialogs like find files and similar have a simple version that can be toggled with a hyperlink to full mode


I suppose in a week or so I will start the public beta testing

[Gandolf]

I don't get the point of what you are doing.

In the existing Find files dialogue (for example), I just ignore the extra properties if I don't want them. Why have another dialogue? Overkill!

I want the full mode always, I don't want to have to toggle it on every time just in case I want the extra features. The toggle, if you insist in having one, must be permanent.

[nikos]

I notice in passing the overuse of "I" again

[Gandolf]

I notice in passing the overuse of "I" again

Then I will say:
I will probably not use version 6.
I will stick with version 5.
I am happy with the way x² is.


One of my fellow engineers, when he had done something stupid that I suggested he should not do, said to the Head of Engineering "Why is he always right!".

[nikos]

I should clarify that the "plain" filter arrangement is optional, so you can continue using the old full dialog layout

[Gandolf]

Is it a good idea to have two styles of filters?
You already have two styles of menues, and you have had posts where users have been asked to check if "plain menues" is checked because they can't find someting in the menues.
Is the same thing going to happen with filters?

Note: no "I".

[nikos]

look, most of the time many people (myself included) don't use any advanced search options, usually just NAME. Why clutter the interface with unused "advanced" options?

[otlaolap]

Thought about biting my tongue, but you did post in order to get reactions, so after all, a day later, I'll give one.

I dislike, pretty intensively, the blather at the top of the image: the fuzzy binocular icon and the "Choose where to search . . ." text. If you insist on adding this stuff, which is pure visual distraction (like the audible clutter of a truck backing up blaring "beep beep beep" every time it does), please add a "do not show again" checkbox to it. I know you have a tough life, with clueless users on one hand and immovable fogies of all types on many more hands, with a program of immense complexity over a very broad range of possibilities, with no great way to teach people about all this and how to use it, but you asked, and I truly hate unremovable visual clutter. (Still like the product, could not live without it, please never kill 3XXXX, may the gods smile on your efforts, bring back Kilmataed, and many similar prayers for success in what you do.)

[nikos]

no worries, the "facelift"-cum-minihelp top band can be turned off by advanced settings

[Kilmatead]

...bring back Kilmataed

Pretty sure he did that already...? Does no one read the Especially Useful Topics Page anymore? Sheesh.

...and immovable fogies of all types on many more hands

As a liberal type, I'm only too happy to claim membership of this group, in contravention of my own principles. When I was in university (in Texas), I had an ethics lecturer who randomly posited questions like:

Q: You're walking along the road and see a rock in the middle of it, do you:
1: Ignore the rock and continue walking without thought for other road-users
or, 2: Stop and move it yourself having regard for others who may trip/drive over it to their detriment

I always liked to consider myself part of the second group, as most armchair heroes would do. However, one evening later that week I was taking one of my long accustomed walks at night to clear the mind, and I ran across a rock in the middle of the road. Laughing at the serendipity of things, I bent down to pick it up and toss it aside... and stopped.

The rock was moving.

Turns out that tarantulas like the heat the asphalt retains from the sunlight of the day. Who knew? Beginning to rethink my membership in the Option No. 2 Club, I recalled an orientation pamphlet when I first arrived which reminded students "who were from far away places" that one should always lift up the toilet seat before sitting down, as "rattlesnakes were known to curl up under porcelain to cool themselves during the day."

I'm not sure what else I learned in University, but two things always stuck with me: Don't sleep on a futon in Texas, and always make sure the light bulb in the loo is working.

They don't teach you these things in cowboy movies.

What's the point of this wholly-relevant-and-not-at-all-off-topic anecdote?

1. The "plain menus" option is probably the most passive-aggressive/masochistic own-goal rattlesnake option ever invented.
2. You can never have too many options when it comes to rocks - or menus.
3. Since the dialog has a "?" in the titlebar anyway, otlaolap's pet peeve is true: the banner is superfluous.
4. Never disable the truck's beep-beep-beep thing. When you're the one standing behind it, it's music to your ears.

To the observateur occasionnel, it seems users have become more casually negative to nikos' proposals in recent years... perhaps the userbase here is aging proportionally and we all wear our "Change is Bad" t-shirts a little more often than we should. As a developer of plugins no one but me likes, I have long-embraced Camus' Indifferent God postulate, but I do wonder what nikos' breaking point might be? Watch him step on just one more errant lego-brick in his bare feet and enjoy the frothing raving madness rise to the top of his morning cappuccino? Could be fun.

[nikos]

you guys are just old geezers stuck in a groove and allergic to change
I know because I am one too
however you cannot have a major version uphaul without some change

[Kilmatead]

however you cannot have a major version uphaul without some change

Yeah, but when the doctor gave you a consultation for your facelift, you didn't believe his making you look like Brad Pitt would actually change your inner-karma did you? I mean, that forum-profile picture of yours says it all, time-wise - it ain't comin' back, dude.

To cross-pollinate the threads and undermine my own metaphor, you could always owner-draw the main menu... if you were bored, like. And had a month of nothing else to do. And enjoyed pulling your own fingernails off.

[Gandolf]

For Kilmatead: Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

and for Nikos: us "old geezers" are Older and wiser!!

Nothing wrong with change - but change for changes sake is something different and it appears from what you have written about version 6 that it is "change for changes sake".

[otlaolap]

From context, it should be clear that "immovable fogies of all types" was intended to include me. And Kilmataed's points regarding careless slighting of Nikos' great efforts and regarding our (or at least my) advanced aging and ossification are insightful. Mea culpa--as I said I did try to bite my tongue. But I do happily use many of the improvements added over time (in the forthcoming release I look forward to multiple programmable columns for example). Enough of these changes hit the target for me, and as almost always it is possible for me to banish those that don't relate to my fixed habits I am glad to see continued energy being added to this software.

[jdtoomb]

you guys are just old geezers stuck in a groove and allergic to change

Well, yeah..