On 12 Feb 2003, Lyvim Xaphir wrote: > Well, I've done searches within the newbie and expert lists for > "rpmdrake" and I see almost no vocality on a positive note for rpmdrake > 2.1. This isn't from memory, this is from a hard search for "rpmdrake" > thru all emails I have. My lists here date back to 1999. I saw no > naysayers convinced in the discussions on the expert list, may they come > here on this thread and correct me if I am wrong. And if they still > don't like rpmdrake 2.1, I'd appreciate hearing about that as well.
I'm one of the original dissenters who didn't like the removal of tabbing in favor of separate open and close functions. I haven't actually seen 2.1 yet but from what I'm reading here the frontend has been further "improved" in a direction I probably won't like. Maybe a little story will help to convey what is bothering us who find the improvments kludgy, that the rest of you seem oblivious to. I worked 18 years for a bookstore, and had about 20 someodd sections to take care of. One of my regular tasks was the scan the file details for every book in every section I was responsible for. When we first got the program we used it was simple. Star with a list of sections, enter the section you want, then enter the first book in that section and scan the details to make sure they're right. Then hit the spacebar and you're viewing the details of the next book, hit the spacebar for the third book, etc. So I could rapidly go from book to book just by hitting the spacebar and quickly check the information for one of my sections. Then the programmers "improved" things. (Everytime they "upgraded" our package it became less usable.) Now you couldn't hit the spacebar to go to the detail file for the next title. You had to exit back to the list of titles, page down to the title you wanted, scan, then exit, then you're back at the top of the list of titles and have to page down one further than the last time, etc. So if I entered five titles down the last time I exited, I had to remember which title it was and/or count down six the next time. I didn't have to keep these things in mind before, nor did I have to exit, page down, and enter over and over. Just scan and hit the spacebar, scan and hit the spacebar until I reached the last title in the section. It made checking a section enormously more time consuming and made us less able and less likely to keep on top of our sections. Now while the parallel isn't perfect the "improvements" in the DrakConf GUI is of a similar nature. I used to find it VERY convenient to tab back and forth between installed and installable, and now I have to exit the one and start the other, and then exit the other and reopen the first if I want to jump back and forth, which I used to do a lot. Now I almost have to make a list of the things I want to check while I'm in the one, so I don't have to open and close so damned many times. Now in my bookstore job each of the upgrades was presented as an improvment in terms of the underlying code, and perhasps it was, but it damned sure wasn't an improvement for those of us who had to use the product to get our daily work done. I don't know if the processes or functions were grouped differently in the new and improved versions, so that the old frontend experience COULDN'T be coded in, but I damn sure know what it felt like to have to use it. And to a lesser extent that's the way I've felt with the improvements in DrakConf. It's the user whose experience should count. Dale Huckeby
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