MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-05-24 |
| FROM | Marco Scoffier
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Some terms I did not know existed.
|
which may help to explain the classes ... or not.
http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=wimp
WIMP
Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers (or maybe Windows,
Icons, Mouse, Pull-down menus).
The style of graphical user interface invented at Xerox PARC,
popularised by the Apple Macintosh and now available in other varieties
such as the X Window System, OSF/Motif, NeWS and RISC OS.
See menuitis, user-obsequious, window system.
http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?menuitis
menuitis
/men"yoo-i:"tis/ A notional disease suffered by software with an
obsessively simple-minded menu interface and no escape. Hackers find
this intensely irritating and much prefer the flexibility of
command-line or language-style interfaces, especially those customisable
via macros or a special-purpose language in which one can encode useful
hacks.
See user-obsequious, drool-proof paper, WIMP, for the rest of us.
http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?user-obsequious
user-obsequious
Emphatic form of user-friendly. Connotes a system so verbose,
inflexible, and determinedly simple-minded that it is nearly unusable.
"Design a system any fool can use and only a fool will want to use it."
See WIMP, Macintrash.
See also user-unctuous.
http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?user-unctuous
user-unctuous
(By analogy with user-friendly and user-obsequious)
User-interfaces that attempt to soothe (or, some would say, stupify)
users instead of cooperating with them. Common "features" of
user-unctuous systems include: icons of happy faces; mellow colors;
melodic sound effects or even mood music; help tips appearing unbidden
and at unhelpful moments; and a cloying tone either in system messages
("Oops! I couldn't seem to find my old preferences file! I do think I'll
have to make a new one! Please press OK to continue!") or in labelling
of system components (such as the main hard drive being labelled "Your
Hard Drive" -- or, with infantile pronoun-reversal, "My Hard Drive").
http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?drool-proof+paper
drool-proof paper
Documentation that has been obsessively dumbed down, to the
point where only a cretin could bear to read it, is said to have
succumbed to the "drool-proof paper syndrome" or to have been "written
on drool-proof paper". For example, this is an actual quote from Apple
Computer's LaserWriter manual: "Do not expose your LaserWriter to open
fire or flame."
--
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