Re: UI Guidelines - try Raskin ("Humane Interface")

["Michael T. Babcock" <mbabcock fibrespeed net>]

Evan Geisinger wrote:

> The part about using the other (previous) co-selections at the
> arguments to the command was a great idea, though, that I hadn't
> thought of.
>
> Towards the ANaL interface (Almost NAtural Language)... enough of
> kewel acronyms... let's have some consciously uncool ones!

I started trying to apply some natural language parsing at one point to
make a 'do' program that, from the command line, would do what I told it
to do, or tell me how to do it, or offer me the options.  Consider a
well-designed app that would do what the helper characters in MS Office
are supposed to do, except actually act ...

do convert thisfile.jpg to an optimised transparent gif with 16 colours.

do open resume.doc in star office.
do send a copy of resume.doc and thisfile.jpg to dan in sudbury by
E-mail.

... etc.  Yes, there are issues with this, but they can be solved with
"I cannot find a Dan in Sudbury, did you mean Dan Knapp?" or "Dan has 3
E-mail addresses, pick one: 1) blah netscape com, 2) blah tyenet com
(Tyenet is in Sudbury), 3) someone nowhere com"

.. or more fun ... consider the first command given ...

"New message from 'do' helper: new gif conversion program found on
freshmeat.net"

:-)

Ahh ... agents.