Re: mc Digest, Vol 102, Issue 3

[Theodore Kilgore <kilgota banach math auburn edu>]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2012, Mueen Nawaz wrote:

> chris glur <crglur gmail com> writes:
>
> > --------------
> > > 2. The ghost tabs and ghost single space characters are not 
> > > transferred........................................
> > >    anywhere else when mouse-paste is done........
> >
> > You mean an exta comminication between the mouse-paster and the editor?
> > Such complications are to be avoided.
>
> We already have them. You have to shift click to copy and paste with the
> mouse. Should we get rid of that as well? 

Actually, it seems to me that is a good question. There may be a good 
reason for needing to use the shift button, but what is the reason, 
exactly? Just curious. But perhaps someone knows. 

OTOH, to hold down the shift key is rather easy. The question of 
switching invisible characters on or off is not a mere holding of the 
shift key. The procedure for such switching is sufficiently long and 
involved that it would be really inconvenient to use it more than once a 
day. (Thinking out loud: Hmmm. Possibly a script to do this could be 
mapped to some weird key combination, maybe Cntrl-Alt-shift or something 
else that's weird)

I have a good old friend who
> detests syntax highlighting - he did most of his programming before they
> became popular. Many people consider a spell checker bloat. 

Good examples. I do regard spell checkers as bloat. None of them can 
actually be trusted. For example, some spell checkers probably do not know 
that both "calendar" and "calender" are words, while some other "better" 
spell checkers might have been taught that both of them _are_ words. But 
to have one of the "better" spell checkers which "knows" that both of 
these are "correct spellings" is in itself no help at all. A calendar is 
hung on the wall. A calender is used while manufacturing paper. There is 
no context in which both "spellings" are correct. Oops. How many other 
examples of this problem are there? Many. One might start with "its" and 
"it's." Again, in any given context at most one of the two can be correct. 

> You have to realize that you're arbitrarily drawing a line as to what's
> acceptable and what's "artsy". Anything beyond Edlin's capabilities is
> artsy to some. 

Indeed. That was part of my point. Another part would be that some people 
might consider even the presence of a mouse to be "artsy." One does have 
to be careful about such matters. Especially, leaders of big projects need 
to be more careful. 

For example, not all design decisions taken from on high both in KDE and 
in Gnome about "how a desktop environment is supposed to work" have been 
universally popular. Some of those decisions have not always meshed 
well with the work flow and work habits and expectations of too many of 
their users. Sometimes, the response has been that the problem lies with 
those users who just can not understand what is good for them. Such an 
attitude seems to have worked well enough for Microsoft, but Linux desktop 
projects cater to a very different clientele. 


> > >  I understand that there is an option to turn these ghost characters on,
> > > or to turn them off.
> > GOOD! Show me how ?
>
> In the editor, press F9, go to Options and then General. Then outside of
> the editor go to Options and "Save Setup" - this will ensure the
> behavior is saved for future Midnight Commander sessions. 

Right. More detailed explanation in my reply. 

> Given that it can be turned off, is there still a problem here? I can
> understand it would be a serious usability issue if one can't and your
> grievances would have a lot more weight, but I think it's fine as it is
> as long as the user can choose it. I suppose one could argue which
> should be the default mode.

As I said, I would wish for a third option. Namely, that I can see the 
invisible characters, but the mouse will not turn them into visible 
characters if I use it to copy something. Most ideal of all, of course, 
would be that it copies them while preserving their fundamental, invisible 
but functional nature. Perhaps it really would be too difficult to write 
the code which can do this. But, hey, I can still wish.


> > No. My requiremet trumps yours.
> > The most primitive requirement is UNIQUE.
> > All further fancy-facilities are merely ONE of an infinite fad posibility.
>
> And some of those fancy-facilities is why people use Midnight
> Commander. 

Indeed. There are after all other file managers, especially related to the 
big desktop projects for example. I don't think that I have ever seen a 
one of them which works so well and I am not interested in using them even 
in the X environment. 

> Also, I'll add that Midnight Commander lets you use a different editor
> if mcedit doesn't suit your needs, which makes things much more flexible
> for the user. 

Also true, of course. And one can even "hard wire" this as an option in 
the configuration for MC, too. 

[...] (cute story, BTW. I don't teach astronomy, but I do teach 
mathematics and I can see things like that from both sides of the desk)

Theodore Kilgore