It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

Igor — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 18:04:00 GMT

ChangeWindowVisibleState?!?!?!? Jesus...

If you are really considering the change please make it shorter like for example:

SetWindowVisibility()

instead of:

ChangeWindowVisibleState()

Then you could also have GetWindowVisibility() which could be usefull.

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

Steven Edwards — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 08:45:06 GMT

This is not really your department but its UI flow related so here goes. Open the Routing and Remote Access Wizard/Manager/whatever you guys call it in a Windows Server 2003 system. Assume its already configured but acting a little odd so you want to make some changes and tweak a few things for the PPTP tunnels. Make a few tweaks.

Now if you want to stop and restart the service you think it would be sane to be able to do it from here? No you have to go to the service manager or do it from the command line using net. Quite a pain in the ass.

OK So what if your like me and you thought, if you right click on the server and chose disable it warns you that it will lose all of your settings. Thats a nice warning but what if I want to back them up? There is no option to do this. SO I HAVE TO WRITE THEM DOWN BY HAND SOMEWHERE. Right click, disable, guess what it really does blow all the settings away. At least it does what it warns about. I don't know why it called "disable" it should be more called "uninstall" or "remove configuration" but I digress. How about adding a stop and start option to the context menu? Or giving the administrator an option to backup the server settings?

I would not complain except every modern Windows applications is loading with insane UI choices like this. There is no logical flow, its like the snap-in mentality of the MMC has constrained the Windows Server team. Do you guys have some hidden guidelines somewhere that says "Write snap-ins that look pretty but have none of the features the administrator needs?"

Don't even get me started on Exchange Administration...I could suggest better improvements all day but your answer will then be that your blog is not the place. The whole modern HIG for Windows needs to be thrown out. It was mostly sane for NT4/Win2k.

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

microsoft=standard — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 03:39:47 GMT

Microsoft is a member of the USB Device Working Group, and how windows implement the standard IS the standard which manufacturer have to follow if they want to sell any logoed hardware.

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

Captain Obvious — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 03:33:21 GMT

[ It's not enough to say that something is bad. you have to say what would be better. ]

> In the case of your first example, it was fairly obvious that the poster wanted a corresponding HideWindow function

[That's one possibility. Or maybe they wanted the function renamed to ChangeWindowVisibleState. -Raymond]

No.

[Too bad, because ChangeWindowVisibleState actually had a chance. -Raymond]

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

Igor — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 17:39:15 GMT

Raymond, I am sorry for going offtopic. I would also like to give that subject a proper treatment so I will refrain from discussing it further here.

It is just that (from a user perspective) I do not agree that responsive UI is prefered over the one which works correctly.

Back to the topic, I was saying that sometimes companies ask for detailed feedback and then they ignore most of it in further communication with the customer.

For example, they ask for BIOS version in the feedback form and then when I fill in the latest BIOS version number they ask later "Do you have the latest BIOS version?"

Because of that happening people realize that giving detailed feedback from the beginning doesn't work and then they don't bother but instead they say "This sucks!" and then wait for you to ask the questions so as they don't have to answer the same questions twice.

Another reason why people don't bother to give detailed feedback is because they think it is your job to figure it out. They think "If I solve it for you then I could as well take your place and your salary".

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

kokomo — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:55:13 GMT

Raymond 1, Igor 0.

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

Igor — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 02:16:09 GMT

Raymond said: "That file might be on a server halfway around the world with a 500ms round trip time."

Raymond, that is a lousy excuse.

You are attaching that file to send it via email, so sooner or later you will _have_ to read the whole file.

You may as well prefetch it and actually improve performance in that case you are mentioning.

[I'm sorry, I didn't realize that avoiding an unresponsive UI is a lousy excuse. I had already set this topic aside for further discussion but apparently you want to pursue it in two-sentence fragments that demand replies from me. I would prefer to give it a proper treatment at a more leisurely pace. -Raymond]

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

Stephen Jones — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:12:00 GMT

I don't understand the problem with the keyboard everybody is complaining about. You set as many keyboard setups as you want, and then use the language bar to decide what to use.

The whole discussion reminds me of the time I saw a work colleague who had gone out and bought himself a second Arabic keyboard. When I asked him why, he said he wanted to practise typing in Arabic!

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

Igor — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 21:24:31 GMT

Raymond said: "Hint: "Based on content" implies that you have to examine the content before you display the dialog."

Surely you don't consider reading first several bytes from the start of the file such a big performance issue? That dialog is brought up only when user wants to send an image by email. It is not like it is the core of the kernel interrupt processing.

Raymond said: "The cure can be worse than the disease."

At least making an option to disable that dialog and to always attach original images would be a huge step forward.

Even better would be if it checked image size before blindly offering to resize (upwards!) already small enough images.

This is a nice example of how detailed feedback you ask for is being ignored and then you wonder why you don't get any detailed/constructive feedback.

[Yes, reading a few bytes from a file is a huge performance issue. That file might be on a server halfway around the world with a 500ms round trip time. I consider it an example of how many "obvious" solutions don't actually work. -Raymond]

re: It's not enough to say that something is bad; you have to say what would be better

mikey — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:20:29 GMT

can i just say this post smacks of a bit of irony, given:

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/06/28/3572686.aspx

you are sort of looking a feedback horse in the mouth. you [windows team] should be happy you're getting any.

i mean obviously more information is good; but 'it sucks' by itself isn't necessarily bad, depending on context.