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From: Chris Faylor <cgf AT cygnus DOT com>
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 11:48:54 -0400
To: cygwin-developers AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com
Subject: Re: Time for a new DLL release
Message-ID: <20000429114854.D14383@cygnus.com>
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In-Reply-To: <390AA2D8.70D69C52@vinschen.de>; from corinna@vinschen.de on Sat, Apr 29, 2000 at 10:52:40AM +0200

On Sat, Apr 29, 2000 at 10:52:40AM +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>I would gladly appreciate any help in building a Windows GUI. I had
>the bad luck to be forced to write Macintosh/Windows GUIs the last
>seven years and I'm cured of them! Whatever you do there is always
>a user which is graining about the position or the ambiguous text of
>a button. Umm, no, I'm not _really_ embittered...

Ron Parker has shown great facility at creating setup programs in record
time, so if he's volunteering to help, I think it would be great if
you could collaborate.

I have had the same experience with designing GUIs.  It will be just a
variation on our present experience with setup.exe.  People used to
previously complain about the massive full.exe download, now they
look back on it fondly and wonder why we changed it.

The GUI will be the same way.  People will always be confused by
what a particular button does or will be complaining that we did
something stupidly.

Nah, I'm not bitter either.  I just wrote a Windows editor.  Technical
support for GUIs is also very hard.

"Did you click on the File menu?"

"I don't know what you mean.  I moused your program and it crashed my
computer."

"When you say 'crashed your computer' what do you mean?  Can you still
use the computer after the program goes away?"

"The program doesn't go away!  That's what I'm saying!"

"So can you move the cursor?"

"No.  The 'Home' button doesn't work.  It just sits there."

"What about the arrow keys?"

"I'm pressing the Backspace button but it keeps beeping!  I told you
my computer is crashed!"

"What about the right arrow, um, button?"

(twenty five seconds of typing)

"Ok.  It seems to work now.  But now I have two windows.  I want to
get rid of the crashed one.  How do I do that?"

etc.

cgf