New to the list

[Zane H. Healy]

> OTOH, giving a user TOO MUCH control over the interface can be
> just as bad.  You end up adding code to support all these choices
> and build tools to give the user access to those choices (even if
> it's just a list of checkboxes, etc.) and that code has to be
> maintained, tested, etc.
> 
> And, you get comments from users *trying* to use it yet finding
> that it isn't *completely* flexible ("why can't I specify italic
> text to be displayed in white?").
> 
> It's a tough job trying to figure out what flexibility to allow
> the user and what things to cast in concrete.  Especially when you
> are dealing with such a broad spectrum of users!

In my case I want to turn "expose" and "widgets" off on Mac OS X, as well as
the special effects.  That's the bulk of the control I'm looking for.  While
you can disable expose (no hot keys), it is probably still wasting
resources.  The "widgets" problem is much larger, as far as I know there is
no way to turn it off, it is a major waste of resources.  It was one of the
reasons I dumped 10.4 and went back to 10.3.9.  At least the special effects
can be turned off.

> > OTOH, I do want a high-end graphics card and a high-end monitor for running
> > my Adobe DTP apps.  It's also nice to have such a setup for surfing.  In all
> > honesty for the most part, the rest of what I run could be done on a VT420
> > and I'd be just fine.  On anything other than my Mac, I view a graphics
> > display as a way to get a lot of terminal windows (and this is part of what
> > I use it on the Mac for).  But then I am not the typical user, and that
> > probably includes on CLASSICCMP.
> 
> Run screen(1)  :>

One of my favorite Unix applications.  Unfortunately there really isn't an
equivalent on OpenVMS.

		Zane