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Re: Octave workshop for Octave 3.0.0 on windows Xp


From: Francesco Potorti`
Subject: Re: Octave workshop for Octave 3.0.0 on windows Xp
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:58:21 +0100

>It seems that many people are disappointed in some way because Octave
>doesn't have a GUI.  But I just don't see that Matlab's GUI interface
>is all that useful, so it would be helpful to understand what it
>provides that is so essential.
>
>I have also seen people saying how happy they are to have QtOctave,
>and the last time I looked, that actually prevents you from typing at
>the Octave prompt and forces you to type in a small text box that
>takes full command line history and editing away from you[*].  In that
>sense, it provides *less* than the normal "DOS-style" window.  Is it
>just that having a window surrounded by "File" and "Edit" buttons is
>comforting?

I'll try to answer something of this.  I was in the past a power Mac and
Windows user.  I am no more, as I use almost exclusively Gnome now, but
I still regularly happen to use Mac and Windows.  Notice that I never
installed nor used Octave on Mac or Windows, and I used Matlab on
Windows (or was it DOS?) about fifteen years ago, but it seems that I
can understand some things that others do not on this list, so I'll give
it a try.

The main problem, as I see it, is look and feel.  A command-line GUI is
*not* what people expect and are accustomed to use.  This is becoming
more and more true in the Unix world as well, but it is *much* more
important among Windows and Mac users.  While on Unix almost everyone is
accustomed to using a command line at least every now and then, on Mac
and Windows *only* nerds know that such a thing exists and can be used
in practice by a normal user.

When a Windows user installs a program and sees a command line window,
the first thought is «something has gone wrong».  Then research on the
net about what has gone wrong.  Then realisation that the command line
interface is normal, at least for those who know what "command line
interface" means: the others must first learn that, to their
astonishment, that in this millennium there are still programs working
like that.  Then the impulse to uninstall everything and look for
something more user friendly.  The idea of typing "help" at the prompt
is simply out of scope.  The idea of typing "2+2 RET" is not considered:
they never did anything like that before.

When Windows users install a program, they expect to see at the *very*
least some menu items with File/open, File/save, File/quit, and
Help/Demo, Help/Manual, Help/search, and possibly a windows popping up
with some suggestions.  More generally, people do *not* expect to have
to write or memorise things, but to choose items from a menu.  For
example, having a menu with a list of available functions that just get
written to the prompt when chosen, with empty arguments, useless as it
may be, would make a Windows user feel at home and concentrate more on
learning the program than on how much this interface is different from
everything else in the world.

-- 
Francesco Potortì (ricercatore)        Voice: +39 050 315 3058 (op.2111)
ISTI - Area della ricerca CNR          Fax:   +39 050 315 2040
via G. Moruzzi 1, I-56124 Pisa         Email: address@hidden
Web: http://fly.isti.cnr.it/           Key:   fly.isti.cnr.it/public.key


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