On 04/08/15 12:16 PM, "Paul Berkowitz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 8/15/04 10:29 AM, "Frederico" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Yes, it's interesting, and effective for some, but it's a great big annoying >> kludge > Oh, yes? It's annoying? Very sorry. What's the most annoying part? That it > exists at all?
Uh oh. Struck a nerve... (deep breath) Not sure why you're taking this personally, Paul (may I call you Paul?); that the need for a fix exists where none really should is the annoying part, and I'm pretty sure you know that, but it looks like you're in the mood for a pissing contest, and I'm your target. (; We can argue about this all you want, but adherence to Mac OS HI guidelines, not to mention software industry standard HI guidelines, is mandatory, IMO; and I'm not the only one who thinks that way. Your solution for this particular issue is, as stated, effective for some, indeed, quite possibly most people, but you can't deny that people are put to some trouble to deal with it, that it's not intuitive, and that it's not expected behavior. I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that the vast majority of people who have the problem just get annoyed by the problem without any realistic expectation that they can (let alone should) find your solution. > >> where proper adherence to Mac OS behavior should have been in the >> first place. That I should be expected to go find and install an obscure >> third party script, > > What exactly makes it "obscure"? I'm quite well known as a scripter of > Entourage, as it happens. Microsoft publicizes http://macscripter.net as a > source for Entourage scripts in several places, including MacTopia and the > online Help and the official Entourage blog, and it's also linked from the > MVP Entourage website, which is _also_ publicized by MacTopia and the Help. > Once you go there once, it's no longer "obscure", Newsflash: Nail Hammer on Head (film at eleven) Paul, you are indeed a well known, well-publicized, and moreover, well-respected scripter in more than one venue. The problem is that an owner of Entourage must be expected to know you exist, or figure out you exist, as well as *understand* that *AS* exists at all, in order to resolve a myriad of issues that just shouldn't be issues. This is not to be confused with advanced issues of unpredictable use; that the fact we can indeed design our own solutions for such is an absolute blessing; don't think for a second I don't know that. What you are glossing over is the very reality that is most everyday, ordinary software owners. I can give you the names of probably one hundred or so people I know who use Office for Mac, and I promise you that most of them do not know where to begin to resolve their annoyances and problems, let alone feel capable of even implementing the solutions you provide. Most just tolerate them and only discover solutions if they either happen to be sitting around talking software (most non-geeks don't), or are lucky enough to have access to a geek, *and* they remember to outline each little annoyance that comes along. I'm talking about people like by elderly Mother, who struggle just to find the time to sit down and answer email; I'm talking about very busy professors, managers, professionals, et al, who just want a tool that works; they do not have time to learn how to hunt down, decipher, install, and implement AS solutions (read: often patches) for what is annoying them. That is the picture I was painting when I made my statement of what is expected of me; me, not really being the experienced, know where to go or how to solve it myself me, but the everyday Joe me that is all of us. Somehow I think you may have suspected that is what I was getting at, but, if not, try to remember the inexperienced part of you, Paul; the part of you who, but for the Grace of God, might not be blessed with technical prowess -- or even common sense. (: Forgive those who are not ambitious or experienced enough to believe in their hearts that there must be a solution beyond the tools for the those very tools, presented to them. > [...]if it ever was. You can > hardly expect Microsoft to give every script every written an official stamp > of approval, No, I do not. And let's be clear, here: I'm only annoyed by the need for scripts which should not exist -- not by this version (X), or even the newest version of Office & Entourage. MS has been programming on the Mac since it was born. Many of the MacBU programmers worked *at* Apple/Claris. They know what's expected from a Mac app; they can afford extra copies of the HI Guidelines. >> then go find some third party OSAX, > > I could include it in the folder, in fact. The idea was to try to save > download size. Some of my scripts even install scripting additions for you. > Would that make you better disposed to accepting something that actually > does what you say you want? But Paul, in this case, it does not do what I want. Not even close. I don't have enough keys on my keyboard to execute the solution you provide. Sure, I'm the rare exception of having more accounts than ninety-odd percent of all Entourage users, but even users with three or more accounts are probably going to start sighing when they find this issue. Now, I am not as good a scripter as you, Paul, but I can usually get things done. I built my own script that resolves some of the problems with your method (before I knew your method even existed), but it is not a complete solution, and it is not dynamic, nor is yours, and I firmly maintain that it just shouldn't be required. It's a simple, silly oversight, not a feature, that should and could easily be there for very little time or cost, but for the effort to do so. > You seem to manage to get to the edges of "insane" all by yourself, if I may > say so. ;-) Well, "rabid", at any rate. If someone poked you needlessly with a pointy stick thirty or forty or seventy times a day, you'd likely get a bit rabid yourself, wouldn't you? (: >> some simple, standard programming behavior would have allowed me to Tab to >> the account popup, press 'Return', press the first letter or two of the >> account name or at least arrow key my way through the menu, press 'Return' >> again and I'm done. > > I don't know where you get the idea that every single mini-feature that you > can imagine wanting should be included. Let's make this clear: I'm saying that basic adherence to HI guidelines is not a "feature" or even a "mini-feature". It is a programming requirement. And it is an inexcusable violation of that requirement, when someone as big and well-funded as MS is, to repeatedly, pervasively ignore the HI rules. For gosh sakes, if you're not going to spend the time defining every button and other interface widget for selection and rotation, at *least* make it open to Universal Access so a user can at least try to predictably keystroke around as opposed to reaching for a mouse (that may not be possible to reach). > If enough people want it, MS will often include it in a later version. How many handicapped people have to actually express their needs to MS before MS will realize they should have taken the extra few minutes per HI widget to make sure each was as accessible as it should be? They seem to get that, for the most part, on the Windows side of Office; why do you make apologies for the Mac side? If Outlook Express can do it -- remember, it's "free" -- why can't Entourage? > [...] Microsoft MUST provide you with everything you want - NOW. What nonsense. Not what I want, what should have been there. I don't know what motivated you to devolve a series of posts wherein I demonstrate a clear understanding between features I would like to see in a future version, and broken, incomplete or poorly implemented features that should have been fixed by now -- whether those fixes came in the form of a free update (as a fix for Office Notifications should) or got wrapped into one of the more expensive upgrade costs amongst Mac software -- into a perception that I am an unreasonable nut case venting bile as a hobby. If that impression is my own fault, for that I apologize. I tend to think that you are is responsible for much of it; you choose to focus on just one issue raised, and try to generalize my legitimate gripes as all being unreasonable, and make it out as though I'm asking for everything, features and bug fixes alike, for free, right now. Not true, and wholly unfair of you, Paul. Let's isolate this premise just to two items: the accounts popup tab and the Office Notifications window. Now, be honest, as someone who works hard to provide effective HI in your own scripts and apps, are these two things shining examples of powerful features we should be grateful to have, or are they merely examples of powerful features with sloppy, incomplete implementations of key items; items that are destined to be used frequently enough by enough people such as to raise blood pressure when they fall short. If you can defend either of these two items, especially the latter, and suggest that fixes should come in their sweet time, only through the Democratic process they have yet to put in place -- if at all -- and at my expense, then I'm going to have a hard time not finding *that* nonsense. /: > Then there are people like you., who seem resentful > and dyspeptic that I would even presume to provide a solution. It has to be > Microsoft or no one, right? Here you go again, letting your ego get in the way of the real issues; trying to turn this whole bloody thing into a singular ad hoc attack on your under-appreciated efforts for the good of all. OK, Paul, while expressing my undying gratification and endless respect for solutions and attempts at solutions to date (seriously!), I humbly request that you AppleScript a solution to the Office Notifications window. While you're at it, see if you can AppleScript a solution to the lack of hot-keyed buttons and improper selection rotation in the Spell Checker window. Oh, and while you're there, could you do the same for the New Task window? Now, can you make the keystrokes required intuitive, and seamless such as not to leave any impression that I have pasted a great big patch on top of a lack of basic expected HI behaviors? When you're done with those, I've got another long list of *HI PROGRAMMING OVERSIGHTS* that only a few, yourself included, would take the role of unpaid(?) MS apologist and call them "features" not enough people have requested; "features" that can simply be addressed by third party developers. God Bless AppleScript. The True Power of Macintosh. Apple's best kept secret. A killer feature that solves a plethora of problems. But just not the panacea you make it out to be. > In Tiger, OS 10.4, there is going to be a brand new technology you may have > read about: "Automator". If enough people (like me, or even Microsoft) > provide enough Automator "actions", you will in fact be able to do your own > customizations really easily - what AppleScript was meant to do in the first > place. I've spent a lot of time in Automator already, and I'll be damned if I can find a reasonable fix for the two items we're now focused on. Possible workarounds? Yes. Elegant? Hardly. So easy and elegant enough to excuse the problems and oversights we're fixing? Not by a long shot. > > But you don't want to hear any of this, right? You just want Microsoft to > provide you with your own new version, for free, by 5 PM this evening, > incorporating every feature you can think of. Now. Yeah, that would be ideal, but hardly realistic. Oh... wait, you were being sarcastic, right? Good. 'Cause for a second there I thought you had lost sight of the demonstrated recognition I have for the difference between a genuine feature me and ten other guys could take advantage of, and just the too-long list of oversights and bugs that a programmer and company should take pride in making sure don't exist, and if they do slip by, to issue patches and updates as quickly as possible to resolve as many as possible. If nothing else, by the third or fourth or fifth iteration of the product, have taken some of their valuable development cycle to be sure to polish things up, especially those items that have existed since the product was called something else altogether. > >> God I get so sick of hearing that excuse. How many other industries are >> allowed to raise that dirty flag and make us cower, as though we're to blame >> for the dirt ourselves. How many other industries can get away with building >> defective products they have no obligation to fix, and people just keep >> coming back for more, hoping they can buy their way clean. One day I hope >> that software users as a whole gather together and say, 'Enough. we've paid >> you for a fully functional product, and you're not getting another dime out >> of us until you fix what you sold us and it performs as promised, intended >> and expected.' > OK, now we're talking. Where did you see that Microsoft ever promised you > shortcuts for changing accounts? Oh, c'mon, Paul, I know you're an intelligent man; I know you can read and write English with the best of us; I suspect that English is even your mother tongue. Are you seriously going to twist that statement, which clearly is in reference generally to obvious bugs and HI violations, not features, but also specifically follows up with the Office Notifications window example, which is a shining sample of clear bugs -- or inexplicable bizarre behavior, neither of which is acceptable -- into an unreasonable expectation of (at least implied) promise of suitability? Fine, you can make your case that keystroke access to the Accounts popup is a "feature", not bug -- and I will just as adamantly make a valid case for the opposite; but go ahead: defend the Office Notifications window. You are one of MS's best apologists I've ever seen; I'd love to see the spin you'll put on that ugly bit of code. > Put up or shut up. Fine; resume at the ready. Despite your schoolyard bully tactic intended to "put me in my place", I'll be happy to take over the HI QA at MacBU, and go head to head with Billy Gates himself to go back and spend the dollars it takes to polish up all the stupid oversights that exist in Entourage. I'll even make a presentation that discusses the long-term cost benefits of treating your customers with a little more respect, instead of too-easily giving in to the 'you have to expect a few bugs' mantra that, while perfectly true and not unreasonable at its core, is carried way, way too far. And lest you think I'm an MS hater and can only point fingers at MS, I assure you that is not the case. I wish I could discuss where and how I am valued for just this sort of unforgiving commentary by people who make products you likely use fairly often, or have at least seen and maybe even praised for their elegance, completeness and user-friendliness. Heck, I'll go you one better on your offer above. I use and love MS products enough on the whole to give up a few weeks of vacation to get access to the code itself, or at least get direct access to the programming manager's ear, and spend all the time I can stay awake adding in as much HI adherence as I can. I can nextKeyView away more than a few problems (read: existing features that are incompletely implemented) in short order, and I think they can, if they wanted, as well, in a very short period of time, costing very, very little money comparative to genuine "new features". If I couldn't resolve the Accounts popup access in less than an hour, and the responsible programmer, but for it not being on his approved to-do list, couldn't do it in a third or a sixth less than I, I'd be extremely surprised. I don't imagine that the ON window misbehavior can't also be cured with similar minimal effort. > Or reduce your noise > level to asking a little more politely for new features you might want. I > don't see where you get off referring to minor features you'd like added as > if they were bugs, which they're not. Repeat: Office Notifications window. Not a bug? Really? Explain. Please. Explain. Please. Please. (: In All Good Humor (and with more respect than you're showing me), Cheers Frederico -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
