Opera pain
Xah Lee
• 〈Opera Web Browser Problems〉
http://xahlee.org/js/Opera_browser_problems.html
--------------------------------------------------
This page documents some usability problems of Opera web browser.
You cannot “drag and drop” a image to a folder on desktop to save it.
They insist on using different keyboard shortcuts than every browser.
For example, 【Ctrl+Tab】 is for switching tab. But in Opera, it shows a
tab menu instead. Normally, i can quickly switch to different tabs and
stop at the one i want, visually looking at each tab for fraction of a
second. With Opera, i have to read the titles or small thumbnails.
Also, when closing a tab, instead of showing the tab next to the
closed one, Opera tries to be smart and jump to some other tab,
something like the one opened before the one you closed. Very
confusing. Same thing happens when switching to next/prev tabs using
their 1 and 2 key shortcuts on the numerical keypad.
【Ctrl++】 does not zoom in.
Nudging my mouse's scroll wheel to the sides should scroll window
horizontally. It does not work in Opera, but it does in IE, Chrome,
Safari, FireFox. While Opera is supposed to suppose some fancy
“gestures”. Gesture my ass.
The number keys on the numerical keypad do weird things. For example,
7 seems to zoom out to 20%. 8 zooms to 120%. 5 turns the current tab
into a window, inside the main window. 1 and 2 is for switching prev/
next tab.
The 1 and 2 key for switching tabs is convenient. You can repeatedly
press one of these keys to get to the tab you want. However, if you
landed on a empty page (new tab), the key starts to insert text in the
url field.
The 【Ctrl+w】 key lets me close a tab in IE, FireFox, Chrome, Safari,
but doesn't work in Opera.
In 10.5x, it sports some unusual sidebar widgets, like “Unite”,
“Notes”, and some Sync. And also a trashcan?! Am i supposed to spend a
hour study what these are?
Yeah, supposedly all these can be customized. But every time i tried
to look at its preference settings, it's nearly impossible to find or
set what i want, because it sports its own fancy structure and UI too.
I tried to use Opera few times every year since 1998. Every time i got
frustrated. In the latest version, 10.5x, even the graphical user
interface is different. When Apple or Google Chrome sports novel GUI,
i didn't have any frustrating experience. I can still do or find what
you want, sometimes more conveniently, and am able to quickly tweak
preferences for things i don't like. But not with Opera.
No wonder Opera's market never grew. In early to mid 2000s, it was
plagued by being a ad-ware. But since they removed that in 2005, still
nobody uses it. Since about last year, Google Chrome came, and Safari
came to Windows. Both already have about twice the users of Opera. And
i noticed several times in recent years that the Opera guy Håkon Wium
Lie, best known for his CSS work and advocacy, is a Internet Explorer
and Microsoft hater. In every opportunity he badmouths IE for this and
that. What a scumbag. Here's one of his article badmouthing about IE.
〈Opera to MS: Get real about interoperability, Mr Gates〉 @
theregister.co.uk.
Xah ∑ xahlee.org ☄
maso...@xxxfrontal-lobe.info
>some opinions about Opera. Please let me know what you think.
>
I think you're full of shit...... you asked.
I've been using Opera since it first appeared and find its
convenience such that I cannot tolerate other browsers.
(I have MSIE, Safari(PC), Chrome, FireFox, SeaMonkey and...)
True: Opera can be customized to a degree that may be
beyond some users.
True: Opera is not accepted by some sites -- particularly banks --
probably because of their elaborate security schemes. I use
FireFox for those and FireFox is gradually copying Opera
features but is far behind.
>• ?Opera Web Browser Problems?
>http://xahlee.org/js/Opera_browser_problems.html
>
>--------------------------------------------------
>This page documents some usability problems of Opera web browser.
>
>You cannot “drag and drop” a image to a folder on desktop to save it.
Why would you want to clutter your desktop?
However, Images can easily be saved, copied, or used on the desktop
by one left and one right click on them.
>They insist on using different keyboard shortcuts than every browser.
Who needs a keyboard shortcut? Perhaps those who do should stick
to MSIE.
>
>For example, ?Ctrl+Tab? is for switching tab. But in Opera, it shows a
>tab menu instead. Normally, i can quickly switch to different tabs and
>stop at the one i want, visually looking at each tab for fraction of a
>second. With Opera, i have to read the titles or small thumbnails.
However Opera displays as many pages as you wish in its window,
can place its toolbars wherever you wish.
>
>Also, when closing a tab, instead of showing the tab next to the
>closed one, Opera tries to be smart and jump to some other tab,
>something like the one opened before the one you closed. Very
>confusing. Same thing happens when switching to next/prev tabs using
>their 1 and 2 key shortcuts on the numerical keypad.
>
You do have to get used to Opera's conveniences.
>?Ctrl++? does not zoom in.
But + and - are all you need.
>
>Nudging my mouse's scroll wheel to the sides should scroll window
>horizontally. It does not work in Opera, but it does in IE, Chrome,
>Safari, FireFox. While Opera is supposed to suppose some fancy
>“gestures”. Gesture my ass.
Side scroll? Oye. By the way, Opera has a "Fit to Width" button that
performs miracles in eliminating horizontal scrolling.
>
>The number keys on the numerical keypad do weird things. For example,
>7 seems to zoom out to 20%. 8 zooms to 120%. 5 turns the current tab
>into a window, inside the main window. 1 and 2 is for switching prev/
>next tab.
>
>The 1 and 2 key for switching tabs is convenient. You can repeatedly
>press one of these keys to get to the tab you want. However, if you
>landed on a empty page (new tab), the key starts to insert text in the
>url field.
Your are describing things utterly strange to me. You must have really
screwed up Opera's customization. I suggest you remove it and re-install.
>
>The ?Ctrl+w? key lets me close a tab in IE, FireFox, Chrome, Safari,
>but doesn't work in Opera.
So you want standardized mediocrity? All key shortcuts are customizable.
>
>In 10.5x, it sports some unusual sidebar widgets, like “Unite”,
>“Notes”, and some Sync. And also a trashcan?! Am i supposed to spend a
>hour study what these are?
I never saw them in any Opera ( have seen all versions, now 10.62). I guess
they can be added.
>
>Yeah, supposedly all these can be customized. But every time i tried
>to look at its preference settings, it's nearly impossible to find or
>set what i want, because it sports its own fancy structure and UI too.
You need a baby buggy, not a Ferari.
>
>I tried to use Opera few times every year since 1998. Every time i got
>frustrated. In the latest version, 10.5x, even the graphical user
>interface is different. When Apple or Google Chrome sports novel GUI,
>i didn't have any frustrating experience. I can still do or find what
>you want, sometimes more conveniently, and am able to quickly tweak
>preferences for things i don't like. But not with Opera.
Stick to your baby buggy. Or ask your mama for a stroller.
>
>No wonder Opera's market never grew. In early to mid 2000s, it was
>plagued by being a ad-ware.
Never saw that. Probably on the free version in the old days when
browsers were priced. I paid for mine -- best buy I ever made.
> But since they removed that in 2005, still
>nobody uses it. Since about last year, Google Chrome came, and Safari
>came to Windows. Both already have about twice the users of Opera. And
>i noticed several times in recent years that the Opera guy Håkon Wium
>Lie, best known for his CSS work and advocacy, is a Internet Explorer
>and Microsoft hater. In every opportunity he badmouths IE for this and
>that. What a scumbag. Here's one of his article badmouthing about IE.
>?Opera to MS: Get real about interoperability, Mr Gates? @
>theregister.co.uk.
>
> Xah ? xahlee.org ?
There are countless Microsoft and IE haters, and for good reasons, but
you work for Microsoft don't you? Microsoft's persistence in trying to
control standards and maintain a monopoly is well known.
--
MasonC
Scott Bryce
> I think you're full of shit.
That has been the consensus on other newsgroups where he has posted.
David E. Ross
using Mozilla Suite when it replaced Netscape Navigator. Netscape
Navigator was the first browser I used.
I use Internet Explorer only to capture updates to Windows. I do that
because Micro$oft will not let me update via SeaMonkey.
Firefox and SeaMonkey are both Gecko browsers.
See my comments below.
On 9/15/10 1:22 AM, Xah Lee wrote:
> some opinions about Opera. Please let me know what you think.
>
> • 〈Opera Web Browser Problems〉
> http://xahlee.org/js/Opera_browser_problems.html
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> This page documents some usability problems of Opera web browser.
>
> You cannot “drag and drop” a image to a folder on desktop to save it.
Yes, this is a capability of Gecko browsers. However, I did not know it
existed until today. I will not likely use it because I generally save
images to folders that are NOT on my desktop.
> They insist on using different keyboard shortcuts than every browser.
>
> For example, 【Ctrl+Tab】 is for switching tab. But in Opera, it shows a
> tab menu instead. Normally, i can quickly switch to different tabs and
> stop at the one i want, visually looking at each tab for fraction of a
> second. With Opera, i have to read the titles or small thumbnails.
If every browser had the same user interface -- including keyboard
shortcuts -- why would anyone choose one browser instead of another one?
One reason the user interfaces are different is that the developer of
the browser that first has a user interface feature will sometimes sue
for copyright or patent violations any other developers who implement
the same feature in the same way.
Why bother navigating through a bunch of tabs? Gecko browsers display
the page titles in the tabs. I go straight to the tab I want by looking
at the titles. Gecko browsers also display thumbnails, but they can be
suppressed with a simple setting.
In any case, I prefer to operate via a mouse. I rarely use keyboard
shortcuts. For those few keyboard shortcuts that I do use, I have a
chart of them.
> Also, when closing a tab, instead of showing the tab next to the
> closed one, Opera tries to be smart and jump to some other tab,
> something like the one opened before the one you closed. Very
> confusing. Same thing happens when switching to next/prev tabs using
> their 1 and 2 key shortcuts on the numerical keypad.
Depending on the navigation history of the tabs still open, closing a
tab in a Gecko browser will either jump to the last tab opened, the tab
from which the closed tab was opened, or the tab opened immediately
before the closed tab was opened. I haven't figured this out, and I
don't really care. I rarely have many tabs open at the same time.
> 【Ctrl++】 does not zoom in.
I have toolbar buttons for zooming. This allows me to use my mouse.
> Nudging my mouse's scroll wheel to the sides should scroll window
> horizontally. It does not work in Opera, but it does in IE, Chrome,
> Safari, FireFox. While Opera is supposed to suppose some fancy
> “gestures”. Gesture my ass.
I never use this. My scroll wheel is for vertical scrolling. Pressing
it is for launching a link in a new tab. Pages that require horizontal
scrolling are an abomination, so I don't care how you scroll them.
[snipped]
> In 10.5x, it sports some unusual sidebar widgets, like “Unite”,
> “Notes”, and some Sync. And also a trashcan?! Am i supposed to spend a
> hour study what these are?
When you acquire and install new software, YES, you should read the
instructions. Others will say that you should RTFM (read the *** manual).
> Yeah, supposedly all these can be customized. But every time i tried
> to look at its preference settings, it's nearly impossible to find or
> set what i want, because it sports its own fancy structure and UI too.
Gecko browsers have their own preference settings and also their own way
to set them. In a number of cases Firefox, SeaMonkey, Camino, and
others (all Gecko browsers) each have preference settings not shared
with other Gecko browsers. I have been tweaking SeaMonkey preference
settings for several years now, and I still have to look up settings
when I want to do something different.
[snipped]
> No wonder Opera's market never grew.
Opera's market was severely impacted by the fact that it was originally
NOT freeware.
[snipped]
> the Opera guy Håkon Wium
> Lie, best known for his CSS work and advocacy, is a Internet Explorer
> and Microsoft hater.
He is not the only one. Ask most Firefox and SeaMonkey users. Ask
anyone who owns a Mac. Ask those who use Linux.
--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>.
Anyone who thinks government owns a monopoly on inefficient, obstructive
bureaucracy has obviously never worked for a large corporation.
© 1997 by David E. Ross
Neredbojias
> On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 01:22:21 -0700 (PDT), Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>some opinions about Opera. Please let me know what you think.
>>
>
> I think you're full of shit...... you asked.
>
> I've been using Opera since it first appeared and find its
> convenience such that I cannot tolerate other browsers.
> (I have MSIE, Safari(PC), Chrome, FireFox, SeaMonkey and...)
>
> True: Opera can be customized to a degree that may be
> beyond some users.
Actually, I tend to agree with Mr. Lee moreso than you or Scott.
AFAIC, Opera is *not* an "excellent browser" as so many plebs here say,
and of the top 5, it is definitely last. What people see in it I just
don't really know but the usage statistics unambiguously suggest that
they are in a considerable minority.
--
Neredbojias
Ed Mullen
Seems to be a good market-place argument. What is good /should/
eventually crowd out what is less good.
I also see little in Opera to attract me. I only have it for the odd
compatibility testing.
SeaMonkey is my 99%-used app. Firefox next. Almost never IE8, Safari or
Opera. Chrome I uninstalled. So far it's insignificant to me.
On the other hand, I'm a hold-over from Netscape, then Mozilla and now
onto SeaMonkey. So, don't anyone listen to me, the dinosaur.
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
Deja Woo: Hmm, I think I've seen this Chinese guy before.
Phillip Jones
-------------------snip-------------------
>> the Opera guy Håkon Wium
>> Lie, best known for his CSS work and advocacy, is a Internet Explorer
>> and Microsoft hater.
>
> He is not the only one. Ask most Firefox and SeaMonkey users. Ask
> anyone who owns a Mac. Ask those who use Linux.
>
were it not for IE everyone would be coding to standards and everyone
would be able to see exactly the same thing regardless of browser.
--
Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T. "If it's Fixed, Don't Break it"
http://www.phillipmjones.net/ mailto:pjo...@kimbanet.com
Phillip Jones
-------------------snip-------------------
> SeaMonkey is my 99%-used app. Firefox next. Almost never IE8, Safari or
> Opera. Chrome I uninstalled. So far it's insignificant to me.
>
> On the other hand, I'm a hold-over from Netscape, then Mozilla and now
> onto SeaMonkey. So, don't anyone listen to me, the dinosaur.
>
count me in as dinosaur as well
dorayme
Phillip Jones <pjo...@kimbanet.com> wrote:
> were it not for IE everyone would be coding to standards and everyone
> would be able to see exactly the same thing regardless of browser.
I doubt it. It is not just IE that renders things different to
every other browser.
--
dorayme
Ed Mullen
Umm, isn't that, err, kinda like, ahh, not at all definitive?
I mean. If Opera doesn't, and IE doesn't, and ... well, what's the
standard any of them should stack up against?
And I don't mean running pages through the validator. I mean, stand
back from your preferences. If you were writing an article for a tech
journal, could you pick one browser and say: "xxxx is the standard, by
God!!!. xxxx is the one you should make sure your Web pages look good
in. xxxx is the one for ..."
Look, the "law" - or proposal - umm, what exactly is this W3C stuff? ...
is that, well, ya know, here's a kinda sorta bunch of stuff that we'd
kinda like you software writers to work toward but, well, ya know, it's
only a sorta suggestion so, ya know, even though we got really really
anal about the specs, well, they're not really specs but, well, ya know,
kinda like, well, we'd sorta really like it if you'd build your software
to kinda do this ... BUT! It's ok if it doesn't! Because, well, it's
not a "specification" it's just a suggestion!!! And we wrote a whole
bunch of loophole-ee kinda "ifs" into the "spec" so you can pretty much
make sure none of this shit ever works right.
You know, if the RIAA back in the the "olden days" had taken that
attitude, LP records, and the entire music industry, never would have
happened.
I tend to picture the people involved in the W3C sitting at their
computers, one hand on the keyboard, one hand in their crotch, never
knowing what itch to scratch first.
But! Hey! As Dennis Miller said: Just my opinion, I could be wrong!
Either way, it's pretty fucked up.
I can buy a Torx driver, a Phillips driver, an Allen key (metric or US),
metric or US sockets, batteries, beer. Standard measures, standard
construction.
HTML? CSS? It's as if some said: Ok, here's the spec for a Torx screw
head. But, well, ya know, if you decide to implement a Torx drive?
And, ya know, you have a better idea of how it should work? Well,
super, just you go ahead and we'll still label it "Torx."
I need a drink. I've never seen any "standard" so not standard.
In fact, it's just a "suggestion."
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
Why do they report power outages on TV?
Phillip Jones
incompatible to lock people on PC's have to use IE to view web pages.
That way others could view the pages as correct. So people that tried
others said hey the others are broke so we will stick with what works.
Heck Gates was one of the original Signatories of W3C (along with Apple
and others) he could see how the standards would be written and Make IE
as far as possible from those standards as possible.
Yes they are a set of Standards. Not rules carved in stone.
dorayme
Ed Mullen <edNO...@edmullen.net> wrote:
> dorayme wrote:
> > In article<i6rv0e$5ll$1...@news.albasani.net>,
> > Phillip Jones<pjo...@kimbanet.com> wrote:
> >
> >> were it not for IE everyone would be coding to standards and everyone
> >> would be able to see exactly the same thing regardless of browser.
> >
> > I doubt it. It is not just IE that renders things different to
> > every other browser.
> >
>
> Umm, isn't that, err, kinda like, ahh, not at all definitive?
>
Different non-IE browsers do different things according to their
default stylesheets, out of the box font settings/options/prefs.
They go different ways on how they apportion space in multiple
cell multi row tables and they do different zandankydiddlyfiddly
things with floats under various conditions. Opera does cute
things with absolute positioning, fixed positioning that some
other browsers don't do.
...
> I need a drink.
Now why did I have a feeling that this was coming! <g>
--
dorayme
Scott Bryce
> Actually, I tend to agree with Mr. Lee moreso than you or Scott.
I was not commenting on the quality of the browser. I was commenting on
the quality of the OPs posts. I have encountered him on another
newsgroup where all of the regulars happily have him kill filed.
Just look at what has happened here. We have this big discussion here on
a subject that is off topic on this NG. That seems to be what the OP
wants, judging by the sort of things I have seen him post elsewhere.
Neredbojias
> Neredbojias wrote:
>> On 15 Sep 2010, maso...@XXXfrontal-lobe.info wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 01:22:21 -0700 (PDT), Xah Lee<xah...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> some opinions about Opera. Please let me know what you think.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I think you're full of shit...... you asked.
>>>
>>> I've been using Opera since it first appeared and find its
>>> convenience such that I cannot tolerate other browsers.
>>> (I have MSIE, Safari(PC), Chrome, FireFox, SeaMonkey and...)
>>>
>>> True: Opera can be customized to a degree that may be
>>> beyond some users.
>>
>> Actually, I tend to agree with Mr. Lee moreso than you or Scott.
>> AFAIC, Opera is *not* an "excellent browser" as so many plebs here
>> say, and of the top 5, it is definitely last. What people see in it
>> I just don't really know but the usage statistics unambiguously
>> suggest that they are in a considerable minority.
>>
>
> Seems to be a good market-place argument. What is good /should/
> eventually crowd out what is less good.
>
> I also see little in Opera to attract me. I only have it for the odd
> compatibility testing.
I generally don't like to bash Opera because I see the *potential* in
it, but some of the code routines they've incorporated into the program
are really the pits. Also, as Mr. Lee pointed out, somne of the UI
could be better, too. There are a number of things literally or
implicitly "wrong" with it; I ran into a javascript prob the other day,
-a runtime thing which didn't happen in any other browser online or off.
> SeaMonkey is my 99%-used app. Firefox next. Almost never IE8, Safari
> or Opera. Chrome I uninstalled. So far it's insignificant to me.
I go Firefox, but the point you made a while back about user
options/settings is valid.
> On the other hand, I'm a hold-over from Netscape, then Mozilla and
> now onto SeaMonkey. So, don't anyone listen to me, the dinosaur.
But are you a T-Rex or an Apatosaurus?
Neredbojias
Okay, I wasn't criticizing (-or didn't mean to criticize) you, I was
just stating my opinion that Opera needs some work to be "up to snuff".
Neredbojias
> dorayme wrote:
>> In article<i6rv0e$5ll$1...@news.albasani.net>,
>> Phillip Jones<pjo...@kimbanet.com> wrote:
>>
>>> were it not for IE everyone would be coding to standards and
>>> everyone would be able to see exactly the same thing regardless of
>>> browser.
>>
>> I doubt it. It is not just IE that renders things different to
>> every other browser.
>>
> That's True but at time IE came out Gates deliberately made it
> standards incompatible to lock people on PC's have to use IE to view
> web pages. That way others could view the pages as correct. So
> people that tried others said hey the others are broke so we will
> stick with what works.
>
> Heck Gates was one of the original Signatories of W3C (along with
> Apple and others) he could see how the standards would be written and
> Make IE as far as possible from those standards as possible.
>
> Yes they are a set of Standards. Not rules carved in stone.
Uh huh, MS with apparent deliberateness made ie quite non-standard, but
I've made pages recently that were perfectly valid and "html-correct"
which rendered differently in *every* (major) browser. To my mind,
this shouldn't happen, but it does and part of the reason is the
optional clauses in some of the w3c specs.
Osmo Saarikumpu
David E. Ross kirjoitti:
>> On 9/15/10 1:22 AM, Xah Lee wrote:
>> You cannot “drag and drop” a image to a folder on desktop to save it.
> Yes, this is a capability of Gecko browsers.
Other browsers also, at least IE and Chrome. The mileage varies if the
image is a link.
> However, I did not know it
> existed until today. I will not likely use it because I generally save
> images to folders that are NOT on my desktop.
JFTR, the folders do not have to be on the desktop for drag & drop to work.
--
Best wishes, Osmo
Xah Lee
> >You cannot “drag and drop” a image to a folder on desktop to save it.
On Sep 15, 1:45 pm, masonc...@XXXfrontal-lobe.info wrote:
> Why would you want to clutter your desktop?
> However, Images can easily be saved, copied, or used on the desktop
> by one left and one right click on them.
when i browse porn, i often like to save pics i like. Drag'n'drop is
the easiest.
> >They insist on using different keyboard shortcuts than every browser.
>
> Who needs a keyboard shortcut? Perhaps those who do should stick
> to MSIE.
keyboard shortcuts is very convient especially for power users. e.g.
emacs, vi, are all about keys. Even in mouse intensive apps, such as
3d modler Blender, or photoshop, gimp, InkScape, when you become a pro
you tend to go for the keys. Because, keys are precise and brainless
operation, while mousing requires the harder aim and eye-balling
decision making, slower too.
> >For example, ?Ctrl+Tab? is for switching tab. But in Opera, it shows a
> >tab menu instead. Normally, i can quickly switch to different tabs and
> >stop at the one i want, visually looking at each tab for fraction of a
> >second. With Opera, i have to read the titles or small thumbnails.
>
> However Opera displays as many pages as you wish in its window,
> can place its toolbars wherever you wish.
【Ctrl+Tab】 to switch is convient. Because i can keep pressing it to
switch among tabs quickly, and stop at the tab i want. Usual practical
speed is perhaps viewing 6 tabs per second. I normally have about 10
to 20 tabs open in each of Chrome and FireFox. (my 2 daily browser,
open at all times) This many because when you do research on a topic,
you have a lot pages.
Also, i've got system-wide key macros so that 【Ctrl+Tab】 and 【Ctrl
+Shift+Tab】 are single keys (they are the / and * on numpad). Of
course, my system works in all browsers but stops dead in just Opera
itself.
the conventional hotkey to switch tabs on Windows are
【Ctrl+Tab】, 【Ctrl+Shift+Tab】 and or
【Ctrl+PageUp】 , 【Ctrl+PageDown】.
All browser supports one of these shortcuts, usually both.
in my key macro app (on Windows it's AutoHotkey http://xahlee.org/mswin/autohotkey.html
), i can easily adjust to one of these. With opera, it takes some 10
min or more to findout what key is what for each operation i have
macro for... the end result has been that i just didn't bother and
abandoned opera for the possibility of using it more often.
> >Also, when closing a tab, instead of showing the tab next to the
> >closed one, Opera tries to be smart and jump to some other tab,
> >something like the one opened before the one you closed. Very
> >confusing. Same thing happens when switching to next/prev tabs using
> >their 1 and 2 key shortcuts on the numerical keypad.
>
> You do have to get used to Opera's conveniences.
>
> >?Ctrl++? does not zoom in.
>
> But + and - are all you need.
Thanks. Yesterday while i was frustrated and writing this, noticed the
standard zoom in key Ctrl++ doesn't work. However, apparantly 【Ctrl+-】
does zoom out. So naturally one'd think 【Ctrl++】 should work too. So,
you can see where this confusion came from. The point here is that the
non-standardness adds up, like some might say about emacs. You end up
spending days just to learn the tool first, before you can use it
fruitfully.
> >Nudging my mouse's scroll wheel to the sides should scroll window
> >horizontally. It does not work in Opera, but it does in IE, Chrome,
> >Safari, FireFox. While Opera is supposed to suppose some fancy
> >“gestures”. Gesture my ass.
>
> Side scroll? Oye. By the way, Opera has a "Fit to Width" button that
> performs miracles in eliminating horizontal scrolling.
Side scroll is important.
There are popular sites that relies solely on side scroll.
e.g. http://www.plurk.com/chunweiku
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurk
the plurk site made mouse wheel to scroll horizontally, but there are
other sites, that are designed to be horizontally scrolled, either for
artistic effect or for practical purposes (e.g. history line, a series
of photos, panorama).
all things said, for scroll wheel mouses that has left/right push
feature , it seems stupid not to support the functionality of the
device. The fact that all other major browsers do support it,
indicates it's not some tech hurdle.
one wonders why opera doesn't support it. Is it just sloppiness, or
they actually intentionally decided that they didn't want to support
it?
what i can't really believe is that they don't support drag'n'drop for
saving images. That's the last straw that broke the camel's back, and
made me to write my essay. At first as usual i thought the feature is
hidden in some preference that i need to turn it on... but not, after
searching the web a bit.
> >The number keys on the numerical keypad do weird things. For example,
> >7 seems to zoom out to 20%. 8 zooms to 120%. 5 turns the current tab
> >into a window, inside the main window. 1 and 2 is for switching prev/
> >next tab.
>
> >The 1 and 2 key for switching tabs is convenient. You can repeatedly
> >press one of these keys to get to the tab you want. However, if you
> >landed on a empty page (new tab), the key starts to insert text in the
> >url field.
>
> Your are describing things utterly strange to me. You must have really
> screwed up Opera's customization. I suggest you remove it and re-install.
The numerical keypad as functional shortcuts keys is part of Opera, i
discovered and started to use since maybe 2005 on the Mac.
I recall, few years ago when a new version of Opera came out, they
removed those keys, and adopted keys more similar to FireFox. (and i
was thinking: “Opera finally realized the weirdness of their keys”)
But i like the 1 and 2 keys for tab switching, so i went to the
preference and took a while to find a option something like “use
previous opera keyset”, so i have 1 and 2 as tab switching keys.
in the latest opera 10.62, i don't know by default these are
supported... maybe the reason it doesn't work for u because it was
carried over from my preference settings... too lazy to dig now.
> >The ?Ctrl+w? key lets me close a tab in IE, FireFox, Chrome, Safari,
> >but doesn't work in Opera.
>
> So you want standardized mediocrity? All key shortcuts are customizable.
there's a good reason to support standard, or widely adopted
practices.
For example, in my case, i have system-wide key macro sets. So, i
press one single key to close window or tab in any browser or other
app. But when in Opera, things stopped working. So i have to adjust my
macros, but then, it is time consuming to find out what's Opera's
ways. This seems to be my impression in the past 10 years every year i
tried.
Also, in mid 2000s i was on a low-muscled Mac laptob, so i kept a eye
on cpu use for any app i use. I recall, Opera even when idle with no
page loaded, will suck some 10% of cpu. I recall, all other browsers
do much better. I vaguely recall the best was Camino in this regard.
am a keyboarding freak. You might find some interesting tips at my
site:
• 〈All About Keyboards, Keyboard Layouts, Shortcuts, Macros〉
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/keyboarding.html
> >In 10.5x, it sports some unusual sidebar widgets, like “Unite”,
> >“Notes”, and some Sync. And also a trashcan?! Am i supposed to spend a
> >hour study what these are?
>
> I never saw them in any Opera ( have seen all versions, now 10.62). I guess
> they can be added.
that's odd. My version is 10.62, just updated few days ago, i think it
was released this month or maybe last month.
On the left side, there's the bar sporting several new icons. On top
right, you have this recycle bin trashcan. (gosh, maybe i'll do a
screenshot in my next post)
ah, just realized, on the lower left corner of window, there's a
widget. Click it to show the side panel that toggle display these new
weird widget icons.
The menu by default is gone, instead, you have on the top left corner
a menu-button kinda widget, that effectively collaps all menus into
one hierachical menu.
> >Yeah, supposedly all these can be customized. But every time i tried
> >to look at its preference settings, it's nearly impossible to find or
> >set what i want, because it sports its own fancy structure and UI too.
>
> You need a baby buggy, not a Ferari.
hehe, a buggy to relax and see the country side? yes i needed that.
> There are countless Microsoft and IE haters, and for good reasons, but
> you work for Microsoft don't you? Microsoft's persistence in trying to
> control standards and maintain a monopoly is well known.
there are few messages in this thread with the common opinion of
Microsoft hatred, many are ill informed. Remember, that it is
Microsoft that brought the concept of adhering to standard html and
css, at the time when Netscape is very busy creating blinks and
LiveScript and stuff. In the early days (late 1990s), IE on the mac
was the first browser to support css or validation or something (you
can easily find it in Wikipedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_Mac
or other articles about IE, web standard...)
Netscape browser, in my personal experience, in every year since IE
started, are worse than IE in EVERY aspect: standard compliance,
speed, features, crashiness... There are ample evidence that's still
available on the web you can verify. I ranted about it, see:
• 〈Netscape Crap〉
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/netscape_crap.html
IE won the browser war in early 2000s, basically got the whole market.
So, they've been lazy, and thus the fact that IE has been worst
browser in every aspect since mid 2005. But Microsoft has been putting
more effort back to browser in past few years, with IE 8 perhaps being
the first better result. (but then the slew of Microsoft haters will
badmouth Microsoft doesn't matter what Microsoft do. One big
controversial topic is whether IE 8 should simply stick to standard
and fuck compatibility to the giga billions of existing web sites.
This been blogged to death.)
in recent years, several times i'm ran into Opera's guy Håkon Wium Lie
badmouthing IE, and i find his attacks scumbaggy.
For example, in his article 〈MS: Get real about interoperability, Mr
Gates?〉 @ theregister.co.uk, he attack Microsoft for claiming to play
nice yet all their pages still not valid html or something to that
effect.
Look at opera home page now:
http://www.opera.com/
http://www.opera.com/community/
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-mobile-10-widgets-mobile-emulator-desktop/
http://unite.opera.com/applications/
the above pages are not html valid, out of about 10 pages i just
checked now (and their server seems to send wrong css mine type as
text/html instead of text/css). Should we now launch a attack on Håkon
for being a hypocrite?
Of course, many will say that IE won the first browser war because
Microsoft's dubious business tactics, but i don't agree. This article
might be of interest:
• 〈On Microsoft Hatred〉
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/mshatred155.html
plain texn version follows
--------------------------------------------------
On Microsoft Hatred
Xah Lee, 2002-02-23
Dear Naggum,
It is well known that you are a avid hater of Microsoft, from their
technologies to their leader to their business practices. I have now
and then seen your impassioned expression of this hatred, scattered
among your newsgroup posts.
Personally, i have a inherent distrust toward big organizations. This
applies to Microsoft. Since perhaps 1995, MS has become more and more
large, and as well becoming a hate target especially among unix
communities. Of MS hatred there are two aspects: those who think MS
products are utterly incompetent, and those who think MS business
practices are the most evil.
I have always been a Apple Macintosh user. I have used a few MS
products such as MS Word word processor on the Mac since about 1991,
and Mac version of MS Internet Explorer web browser and Outlook
Express email program when they became available around 1997 or so
free of charge. My experiences have been that MS software on the Mac
are pretty good, if not usually better than competitors. In fact,
before the MS-hatred era of late 1990s, i recall that i was found of
MS Word and would say it was the software that never crashed, with the
richest (useful) features. I have not used MS Windows much until 1999,
so i cannot judge from my own experience whether people's complains
about MS's product's poor quality. By the time i used MS Windows daily
in 1999, it was MS Windows NT, and i have moved into industrial
programing field now called IT. At the time Apple's OS is around
version 8. Although Windows is not as esthetic or intuitive as my
beloved Mac OS, but on the whole i think Windows NT beats the shit out
of Mac OS by far. Mac OS crashed daily if a info-collecting tech-head
like myself are careful, hourly if not, and among quite a few of other
reasons.
As the MS hatred is rolling like a snowball, i started to pay
attention. On one hand, i never cared for Microsoft. Their sole
impression on me before 1998 was that MS Word is good software, and i
hate Windows just because i'm a dedicated Apple fan just because Apple
had made many revolutionary innovations in both software and hardware,
and MS was Apple's market enemy. Although i think the unix crowd are
tech morons of the world, but when it comes to political issues, i'm
inclined to side with their freedom loving and paranoia propensities.
I'm ashamed to admit, that i started to visit unix moron's mecca the
slashdot.org around 1999, and have read quite a lot of their MS hatred
verbiage, from drivel of sopho-morons to Eric Raymond's Open Source
Jihad to Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation. Perhaps due to
their propaganda, at times i shudder at the mind-numbing MS
juggernaut, and have felt ready to join their cause and kill
Microsoft.
Since 1999, my behavior have in fact been mildly anti-Microsoft. I
would, for example, mention Free Software or Open Source in meetings,
avoid using MS products myself and convert all my MS Word files i have
on my Mac to some standard format such as plain text, and also use the
Free Software Foundation's GNU Public License for my own software
dabblings. Still, i was never a MS hater. Many colleagues i know are
MS haters, but i'm just a mild Free Software proponent and was never
sure i should be a MS hater. I could have investigated the issue, by
studying the various lawsuits, check out MS history, exam and verify
MS hater's essays, but life is short and i have other interests so i
did not undertook such activities and never decided whether MS should
be hated. I just disliked big organizations, and thus Microsoft.
Since 1999 i entered the field of industrial programing known as Info
Technology. In particular, i'm a web application programer on the unix
platform. My daily office machines are PCs running Microsoft Windows
(NT and followings) and remote unix servers. I find NT quite usable
and almost never crashed at least as a desktop machine. I don't know
much about any MS-bred technologies, but i knew quite a lot about
unix. My attitude towards unixes is that it is the MOST incompetent
thing in the computing world. I am a outright unix HATER. I have
becoming increasingly nosy about unix MS-hater's claims technology-
wise as most readily found from slashdot.org, from User Interface
design to protocol “embrace & extend” to innovation to power &
flexibility to security considerations. In the past few years, i
started to pay mild attention to the question of whether from a
technical or technological point of view MS should be hated.
Even i don't know much Microsoft technologies except as a daily
Windows user, but in my personal judgment system among all things
considered, i think that if MS has done damage to society then unix
has done hundred times more. I believe that Microsoft Windows
technologies is on the whole FAR superior to unixes both as a PC and
server, all things considered. (this includes the fact that unix is
more stable than Windows NT, today. (as opposed to examing unix's
early years)) Comparing to the other major desktop Operating System
the Mac OS (where unixes are so incompetent it is out of the
question), with intact conscience i think that MS's OS (Windows NT)
since about 1997 has left my beloved Mac OS in dust. If Windows 98 is
poor quality (i know it is), then Mac OS of that year is neighborhood
crap.
(i plan to have book-length material on the reasons, but here for now
i can only briefly state my beliefs in a conclusive manner.)
The above is my beliefs on product or technological quality aspect of
Microsoft-hatred. I have much interest in technology than politics or
business, thus my know-how of social oriented issues pales in
comparison. I have never examined the accusations of MS's evil
business practices, other than news hearsay. To this day, i know
little of what is true or false regarding MS's business practices.
Although i have never undertook a interest of a topic, but as a
philosopher i have gathered opinions regarding a topic from great
variety of sources and experiences, and can form a personal judgment.
And from my observations of computing industry, and my little
knowledge of economics, all things and experiences lead me to believe
that there is little to no reason to hate MS for their business
practice either. Sometimes last year i read Thomas Sowell's Basic
Economics. Although he never talked about software in the book, but
that book made a major impression on my views of MS-hating issues.
Around 1994 i read the book 《Steve Jobs and the NeXT big thing》 amazon
by historian Randall E Stross, and i was highly positively impressed
by him. I have then learned that he also wrote a book in 1997 on MS:
《The Microsoft Way : The Real Story of How the Company Outsmarts Its
Competition》 amazon. Although i have not read the book, but from
amazon.com reviews it indicated that he simply think that the success
of MS is due to being smart.
There are various lawsuits against the MS giant in the last few years,
from Sun Microsystem's Java lawsuit, to United States vs Microsoft
anti-trust lawsuit, to last month's AOL suit for Netscape browser. As
you know, Sun is a unix vendor, with its own greedy grip on Java. I
frankly don't buy any bullshit from the Sun Micro commercial turd. MS
may be devious with their own “standard”-breaking java, but no more
shady than Sun's “Universal” Java sham in the first fucking place. Any
commercial organizations do devious things for their own interest. As
to United State's claim that MS screwed innovation by bundling
browser, that itself is a fantastic fucking idea. Integrating browser
into OS is a innovation, and amid so great many claims that MS does
not innovate, i can think of quite a few cases where MS has in fact
been innovative or responsible for technological lead from my personal
computing experiences. (Microsoft Word accounts for great many
innovations in word processing alone.) And, who needs the government
to meddle with industry? (as i have learned in Thomas's Sowell's book,
anti-trust cases are invariably all the same. Anti-trust laws in the
outset purport to protect the consumer, but always ends up as a weapon
used by competing corporations against the successful in a free-market
system.) Lastly is the AOL's bandwagon-hopping lawsuit in the name of
fantastically incompetent Netscape browser. Fuck America On-Line.
I'm often ignorant when it comes to economics practicality, such as
stock market or personal finance. Since about 1999, i started to
become a stock holder, thus started to learn a bit of its nature. On
this process, one thing came to my attention is that Microsoft is a
public owned company. Public owned companies are directed by the
people who own its stock, and any joe can purchase it. That means, if
Microsoft is a evil empire, then the public shares a great blame. From
this aspect, i don't see any sense of Microsoft-hatred either. Blame
the public, such as your boss and neighbors and wife and friends and
community, or, blame the fantastic greed-oriented system called
capitalism that made USA so prosperous far beyond the moral-oriented
communist/socialist nations or sovereignly ruled kingdoms and
queendoms.
Xah ∑ xahlee.org ☄
dorayme
<ff3cb110-908b-4c45...@f20g2000pro.googlegroups.co
m>,
Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
...
> when i browse porn, i often like to save pics i like. Drag'n'drop is
> the easiest.
>
> > >They insist on using different keyboard shortcuts than every browser.
> >
> > Who needs a keyboard shortcut? Perhaps those who do should stick
> > to MSIE.
>
> keyboard shortcuts is very convient especially for power users. e.g.
> emacs, vi, are all about keys. Even in mouse intensive apps, such as
> 3d modler Blender, or photoshop, gimp, InkScape, when you become a pro
> you tend to go for the keys. Because, keys are precise and brainless
> operation, while mousing requires the harder aim and eye-balling
> decision making, slower too.
Looking at porn can actually cause people to lose their
eye-balling and aiming abilities. Grandma may well have been
right about what can cause blindness. Indulging wantonly in porn
is a form of this cause. I do not recommend it.
--
dorayme
Xah Lee
> > Phillip Jones<pjon...@kimbanet.com> wrote:
>
> >> were it not for IE everyone would be coding to standards and everyone
> >> would be able to see exactly the same thing regardless of browser.
>
> > I doubt it. It is not just IE that renders things different to
> > every other browser.
>
> That's True but at time IE came out Gates deliberately made it standards
> incompatible to lock people on PC's have to use IE to view web pages.
> That way others could view the pages as correct. So people that tried
> others said hey the others are broke so we will stick with what works.
>
> Heck Gates was one of the original Signatories of W3C (along with Apple
> and others) he could see how the standards would be written and Make IE
> as far as possible from those standards as possible.
>
> Yes they are a set of Standards. Not rules carved in stone.
lots of these “Standards” conceptions are fairytale. Remember, it was
Netscape who forced us the non-standard, devious, hated, cookies,
javascript, frames, iframes, among other things. Some, are actually
useful, needed, became “standard”, others, forgotten. Same with a
million things Microsoft did or Apple (today with its iPad and stuff),
and lots other corporations with other techs.
And lots of Microsoft hatred came from jealousy spread by competing
big corps, in particular, Sun Microsystems (am very glad it's dead).
Now we have the hot potato html5, which is insidious turn of what
“standard” means. It effectively says: forget about what we taught you
about standards in the past 10 years, this is new rule! and Google is
putting its feet into the “standard” mix, with its nofollow “non-
standard standard” shit to put their search engine implementation at
ease, and sidewiki and stuff, and none of google's pages are html
valid (and no, this “do no evil” company don't even try; never in
their hundreds of webmaster tips and guidlines mention anything about
encouragement for valid html as far as i know).
when the many tech geeking web monkeys flame Microsoft for evil non
standard, how come we don't ever hear it about Google? Google has far
more non-standard html pages and now far more hegemony on the web than
Microsoft ever did. Is Google the monopoly?
See:
• 〈Google's 「rel="nofollow"」 Rule〉
http://xahlee.org/js/google_nofollow.html
• 〈(Google Earth) KML Validation Fuckup〉
http://xahlee.org/comp/kml_validation.html
--------------------------------------------------
(Google Earth) KML Validation Fuckup
Xah Lee, 2010-07-22
This article documents a condition of a software industry. It is a
rant on software correctness and standards body responsibility.
So, today i'm working on kml files on my site again.
For example, a typical kml file on my site looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.2">
<Placemark>
<name>Aapua wind park</name>
<description>
Good for a visit.
Seven 80 meter high wind turbines.
See photos at:
http://xahlee.org/Whirlwheel_dir/windturbine.html
</description>
<Point><coordinates>23.436459,66.827370</coordinates></Point>
<LookAt>
<longitude>23.436459</longitude>
<latitude>66.827370</latitude>
<altitude>0</altitude>
<range>10000</range>
<tilt>0</tilt>
<heading>0</heading>
</LookAt>
</Placemark>
</kml>
I'm a correctness nerd. So when i started to add kml files on my
website, i made sure that the kml files i created are correct. I spend
several hours reading Google Earth's kml tutorial, and reading
Wikipedia on KML about it, figure out the correct DTD, which tags are
required, and typically also spent considerable time to figure out
what optional tag or choice of formatting that i personally would use.
I know, for a certainty, that the format i created to be used on my
site is correct.
However, i don't remember that i've ever used a kml validator to
verify whether my kml files pass. I'm certain i've tried to find it. I
think at the time (this is in 2006), there's no readibly available kml
validators, only generic xml validators. In any case, so today i
quickly found a authoritave kml validator at http://www.kmlvalidator.com/.
And, boom, it says my files are invalid.
The first error is:
This does not appear to be an OGC KML document--expected document
element in namespace "http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2", but found:
"http://earth.google.com/kml/2.2"
What the fuck?
The second error is:
cvc-complex-type.2.4.a: Invalid content was found starting with
element 'tilt'. One of '{"http://www.opengis.net/kml/
2.2":altitudeModeGroup, "http://www.opengis.net/kml/
2.2":LookAtSimpleExtensionGroup, "http://www.opengis.net/kml/
2.2":LookAtObjectExtensionGroup}' is expected.
I'm sure that i followed tutorial example from the Google dragon's
month carefully. So i went to Google Earth's kml tutorial again, at:
http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/kml_tut.html. The string
〔http://earth.google.com/kml/2.2〕 is now nowhere to be found there.
Apparently, they changed it. Also, the few pages of the tutorial do
not contain any "<tilt>" or “<LookAt>” tag.
Who Listens to Correctness When Authorities Meander?
Apparently, thru the years, as tech and software progressed, they made
changes and fixed things, as usual. But the point here is, today a
working programer has to know tens of protocols, formats, and multiple
languages, and if the programer paid attention to detail in the spec,
and later be fucked in the face for his efforts to follow spec, then
why should we listen to any “recommendations”, “advices”, “specs”
these standards bodies are giving out?
When XML and XHTML came alone in about 2000 with massive fanfare, we
are told that XHTML will change society, or, at least, make the web
correct and valid and far more easier to develop and flexible. Now
it's a decade later. Sure the web has improved, but as far as html/
xhtml and browser rendering goes, it's still a fuck soup with extreme
complexities. 99.99% of web pages are still not valid. Major browsers
still don't agree on their rendering behavior. Web dev is actually far
more complex than before, involving tens or hundreds of tech that
hardly a person even knows about. It's hard to say if it is better at
all than the HTML3 days with “font” and “table” tags and gazillion
tricks. The best practical approach is still trial n error with
browsers.
And, now HTML5 comes alone, from a newfangled hip group, with a
attitude that validation is overrated — a flying fuck to the face
about the XML mantra from standards bodies, just when there starts to
be more and more sites with correct XHTML.
XML is break from SGML, with many justifications why it needs be, and
now HTML5 is a break from both SGML and XML. WTFML anyone?
PS The story of my kml above is actually slightly simplified. When i
started to create kml files in 2006, Google's tutorial says:
<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.1">
But in around 2008, when i was working on kml again, i noticed that
the version is not 2.1 anymore but 2.2, and i think the Google
tutorial for a simple file start to contain the LookAt tag, like this:
<LookAt>
<longitude>23.436459</longitude>
<latitude>66.827370</latitude>
<altitude>0</altitude>
<range>10000</range>
<tilt>0</tilt>
<heading>0</heading>
</LookAt>
I don't remember if it became required tag or not, or if a kml 2.2
file without this blog will simply not have the old behavior in Google
Earth. Or, perhaps i got the idea of this block by looking at the many
(now thousands) existing kml files in Google Earth.
I spent a hour or two to add this block into my existing ~65 kml files
and modified my elisp code that generate kml files. I wouldn't have
done it if it wasn't important. Now, it all changes again, and this
block is no longer shown in the simple example of Google Earth
tutorial. Spent about 4 hours on this today, updating my site and
research into this issue, not counting writing this article.
For collection of kml files, see: Google Earth Files at XahLee.org.
For emacs lisp code that generates kml files, see: Emacs Lisp: Writing
a google-earth Function.
Xah ∑ xahlee.org ☄
John Dunlop
> were it not for IE everyone would be coding to standards and everyone
> would be able to see exactly the same thing regardless of browser.
Is that a concern for web designers?
--
John
Neredbojias
> From this aspect, i don't see any sense of Microsoft-hatred either.
> Blame the public, such as your boss and neighbors and wife and
> friends and community, or, blame the fantastic greed-oriented system
> called capitalism that made USA so prosperous far beyond the
> moral-oriented communist/socialist nations or sovereignly ruled
> kingdoms and queendoms.
Communism may be "morally-oriented" in theory but in practice it is
worse than the worst Capitalism has to offer. "Little Gods" arise who
in some areas have no or very dampened checks-and-balances on them and
their reign can perpetuate for decades. It's like jail without bars,
-one big prison from which you cannot escape no matter where you run
(unless you cross the border.) Capitalism has its problems and
weaknesses, but the freedom in *needs* to survive is what makes it
worth more than the most idealistic non-free country conceivable.
Jonathan N. Little
Hmmm I don't see any scales of feathers, but I guess you have to count
me in on the Jurassic party. Been maintaining this profile since NN3. I
still like the integrated suite concept of Communicator 4.x
I also find Opera cumbersome and also only use it for testing. The
limited drag 'n drop support is one issue. When testing I may have
several browsers open at once and Opera is the *only* browser that you
cannot drag a url to or from.
--
Take care,
Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com
Scott Bryce
> Okay, I wasn't criticizing (-or didn't mean to criticize) you,
I didn't take it that way. I just want to encourage people to KF Xah Lee
and get on with your life.
David E. Ross
To drop, the folder must either reside on my desktop or else be open on
my desktop.
Phillip Jones
should fall flat as a Pancake.
Phillip Jones
MS Started it all. as far as not paying attention to Standards. When
Netscape came out, everything was new in Fact IE wasn't even a Glimmer
in Gate's eye.. Over the years netscape then mozilla has moved away from
stuff. But fr years MS with IE tried to break standards on purpose.
Phillip Jones
advertising education of the viewer there going to be.
Web Designers so design so that a site shows exactly the same regardless
of what it used to view it. Yes it *is*.
Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn
> ["opinions" about Opera]
Unsurprisingly, you are completely off topic.
PointedEars
--
Danny Goodman's books are out of date and teach practices that are
positively harmful for cross-browser scripting.
-- Richard Cornford, cljs, <cife6q$253$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk> (2004)
dorayme
Scott Bryce <sbr...@scottbryce.com> wrote:
If I did kf Xah Lee, I would certainly not turn to continuing
boji's life. I prefer my own miserable existence, thank you very
much. <g>
--
dorayme
Ed Mullen
Probably an oldo-garde-o-saurus. Old enough to know better, don't much
care, that's the way I like things. And I just don't subscribe to this
notion that "Well, that is SOOO 10 years ago! We need to toss out all
that old crap and invent a whole new way of doing it ..." just because
it's "new."
Progress is good, if we can agree to what defines "progress." Ignoring
what has worked well is just dumb. Ignoring users (how they do things,
what they like, learned behavior, invested historical knowledge) is just
plain dumber still. It's arrogant. And ignorant.
But it's what I've come to expect.
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
Opticalrectitus - a condition in which the optic nerve is connected to
the anus. The major symptom is that all observations are routed through
the wrong orifice.
Ed Mullen
I honestly didn't expect to kick up any dust on this topic. Opera is
ok, it's not what I use.
But I was heartened to see the posts about SeaMonkey.
Well, ok, all us old guys from Netscape. Still, it's good to know that I
have compatriots out there.
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
And whose cruel idea was it to put an S in the word Lisp?
Ed Mullen
Hey! You're a self-professed Martian! What the hell do you know about
this? (ok, this outta be good)
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean I ... um ... er
... uh ...
Ed Mullen
Actually, the vagueness of the "standard" is what allows the Web to work.
I still decry what I described in my OP but, really, the vagueness of
the "spec" is probably what allows all of this to function.
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
"I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I
look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up." -
Benjamin Franklin
dorayme
Ed Mullen <edNO...@edmullen.net> wrote:
> dorayme wrote:
...
> > Looking at porn can actually cause people to lose their
> > eye-balling and aiming abilities. Grandma may well have been
> > right about what can cause blindness. Indulging wantonly in porn
> > is a form of this cause. I do not recommend it.
> >
>
> Hey! You're a self-professed Martian! What the hell do you know about
> this? (ok, this outta be good)
Hey dude, just so you know, Martians have grandmas too!
--
dorayme
Neredbojias
I agree. Nevertheless, the "same old thing" can grow boring from
simple familiarity whether it works or not, and some people just can't
help trying to find a "better way" no matter how unlikely it may seem
to be. For example, scientists invented the "test tube baby" as a
better way to reproduce because (according to them) the old-fashioned
method is fraught with dangers, uncertainties, and headaches. It
doesn't thrill me, of course, but perhaps if your IQ is above 150 your
libido is a bit wierd, too.
Neredbojias
That is one (-and maybe the only) thing I like about xhtml: it's
refusal to display on many errors. Still don't use it, though. But
the point is that the specs should be sufficiently effective to allow a
web author to expect that same display with the same code in _any_
browser while being flexible enough to permit different browsers to
establish their own unique "look" using the same standards. That lofty
result may never be attained but it should be the goal toward which the
standards evolve.
John Dunlop
> Web Designers so design so that a site shows exactly the same regardless
> of what it used to view it.
Would you not say that it is a strength of the World Wide Web, as opposed
to traditional print media, that a web page doesn't need to have a uniform
appearance across browsers?
--
John
Erwin Moller
> On Sep 15, 9:04 pm, Phillip Jones<pjon...@kimbanet.com> wrote:
>> dorayme wrote:
>>> In article<i6rv0e$5l...@news.albasani.net>,
>>> Phillip Jones<pjon...@kimbanet.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> were it not for IE everyone would be coding to standards and everyone
>>>> would be able to see exactly the same thing regardless of browser.
>>
>>> I doubt it. It is not just IE that renders things different to
>>> every other browser.
>>
>> That's True but at time IE came out Gates deliberately made it standards
>> incompatible to lock people on PC's have to use IE to view web pages.
>> That way others could view the pages as correct. So people that tried
>> others said hey the others are broke so we will stick with what works.
>>
>> Heck Gates was one of the original Signatories of W3C (along with Apple
>> and others) he could see how the standards would be written and Make IE
>> as far as possible from those standards as possible.
>>
>> Yes they are a set of Standards. Not rules carved in stone.
>
> lots of these “Standards” conceptions are fairytale. Remember, it was
> Netscape who forced us the non-standard, devious, hated, cookies,
> javascript, frames, iframes, among other things.
Do you hate cookies, JavaScript, and (I)frames?
If you are a webprogrammer, I suggest you find another job.
Most professions don't demand knowledge about these things.
> Some, are actually
> useful, needed, became “standard”, others, forgotten. Same with a
> million things Microsoft did or Apple (today with its iPad and stuff),
> and lots other corporations with other techs.
I think you missed the reasons why Microsoft is extra unpopular.
It has nothing to do with failed techs and everything with deliberately
creating confusion and trouble in the browsermarket.
If you didn't notice that you are either poorly informed, very dense, or
working for M$ and paid to post like you do.
>
> And lots of Microsoft hatred came from jealousy spread by competing
> big corps, in particular, Sun Microsystems (am very glad it's dead).
OK, that's it.
[I mostly lurk around here, but this remark triggered me to post.]
You are very *glad* Sun is gone?
I guess you are also glad the Oracle vultures now own all the Java
patents, and is teasing Android with it?
And who will be next?
So many use Java.
I guess you are one of those that like software patents a lot.
I think Richard Stallman was right after all when he warned about this,
in the days Sun still owned it and all seemed fine.
>
> Now we have the hot potato html5, which is insidious turn of what
> “standard” means. It effectively says: forget about what we taught you
> about standards in the past 10 years, this is new rule!
Is it saying that?
I think I recognized quite a few elements from html4 specs in html5
drafts. Are you maybe exaggerating a little here?
You will be able to learn HTML5 just fine if you try.
> and Google is
> putting its feet into the “standard” mix, with its nofollow “non-
> standard standard” shit to put their search engine implementation at
> ease, and sidewiki and stuff, and none of google's pages are html
> valid (and no, this “do no evil” company don't even try; never in
> their hundreds of webmaster tips and guidlines mention anything about
> encouragement for valid html as far as i know).
You are a Microserf, right?
Anything that challenges M$ is attacked by you: Sun, Google.
About Google: Why shouldn't they have a word in HTML5?
It is a huge internet company.
>
> when the many tech geeking web monkeys flame Microsoft for evil non
> standard, how come we don't ever hear it about Google?
You don't know why?
Because Google didn't try to use their desktop monopoly to force users
to surf the web with a substandard unsafe internetbrowser.
That is why.
Don't get me wrong: I don't trust Google either. ;-)
In my opinion it is best to stay a little paranoid once trying to
understand the dynamics in billion dollar markets. That includes Google.
> Google has far
> more non-standard html pages and now far more hegemony on the web than
> Microsoft ever did. Is Google the monopoly?
<shrugs>
As long as Google's HTML renders reasonably on my browser and they
deliver the content I am searching for, I don't care too much.
<snip KML rant: You write too much.>
Are you on the Micosoft paylist? You are far from objective.
Erwin Moller
--
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
-- C.A.R. Hoare
Jonathan N. Little
> I honestly didn't expect to kick up any dust on this topic. Opera is ok,
> it's not what I use.
>
Just goes to show it is not your imagination. Opera has a lot of
features and tools, but it is just a but awkward and cumbersome, a
little like the Linux Desktop of years past, (They have really polished
that baby recently)
> But I was heartened to see the posts about SeaMonkey.
There are just a few techie things that SeaMonkey does that Firefox
doesn't even with extensions. Also I like the integrated mail. There is
probably a Firefox extension to poll POP3, but hey SeaMonkey does the
job! Plus I have maintained the same profile since the 90's. The SM2.x
was the first conversion of that profile.
>
> Well, ok, all us old guys from Netscape. Still, it's good to know that I
> have compatriots out there.
>
Was my first browser. Switch ISP's in the early days and they tried to
foist MSIE3 on me until I discovered the service was not locked to the
browser and went back to Netscape...also I could not stand OuthouseExpress.
I still don't understand the advantage of "global inbox" of OE. I have
several accounts and actually prefer multiple inboxes. I even have
filters that sort certain mail types to subfolders...
Jonathan N. Little
> That is one (-and maybe the only) thing I like about xhtml: it's
> refusal to display on many errors.
Actually that is *any* error if it is truly being parsed as xml. Use a
non-MS browser and create a document and remove just one quote from any
attribute, or capitalize a letter of one tag in an element and see what
happens...no tolerance for any sloppiness. A perfectionist's dream.
> Still don't use it, though. But
> the point is that the specs should be sufficiently effective to allow a
> web author to expect that same display with the same code in _any_
> browser while being flexible enough to permit different browsers to
> establish their own unique "look" using the same standards. That lofty
> result may never be attained but it should be the goal toward which the
> standards evolve.
>
Agree.
Beauregard T. Shagnasty
> I still don't understand the advantage of "global inbox" of OE. I have
> several accounts and actually prefer multiple inboxes. I even have
> filters that sort certain mail types to subfolders...
OE is not the only one. <g>
I currently manage 17 addresses with Thunderbird (v2/Linux) and cannot
imagine having to sort out the mess of all my email crammed into one
global Inbox, and to have everything I sent in one global "Local
Folders" Sent mailbox.
Recently, I helped the widow of a long-time friend sort out his
computer. He had just one Inbox, and a *huge* amount of filtering to
shuffle mail off to near 50 subfolders. It was a mess. It was almost a
month after his death when she called for help, and the computer had
been dutifully downloading new mail and sorting it all that while on his
cable connection...
--
-bts
-Four wheels carry the body; two wheels move the soul
Jonathan N. Little
> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>
>> I still don't understand the advantage of "global inbox" of OE. I have
>> several accounts and actually prefer multiple inboxes. I even have
>> filters that sort certain mail types to subfolders...
>
> OE is not the only one.<g>
So true, Thunderbird defaults to global inbox to mimic OE unless you
choose otherwise in setup.
>
> I currently manage 17 addresses with Thunderbird (v2/Linux) and cannot
> imagine having to sort out the mess of all my email crammed into one
> global Inbox, and to have everything I sent in one global "Local
> Folders" Sent mailbox.
Well when you upgrade to Lucid you get TB3 which has the "smart folders"
which is just a view mode that emulates the global inbox but can be
easily changed to classic. BTW you should upgrade, Lucid is much better
than Hardy. I had no trouble at all upgrading any of mine. Even the ones
I did with a straight upgrade.
>
> Recently, I helped the widow of a long-time friend sort out his
> computer. He had just one Inbox, and a *huge* amount of filtering to
> shuffle mail off to near 50 subfolders. It was a mess. It was almost a
> month after his death when she called for help, and the computer had
> been dutifully downloading new mail and sorting it all that while on his
> cable connection...
>
I am an advocate for hierarchical structures for storage, but that
sounds a bit overboard. TB3 and an archive function, not sure how it
works. I just use an archive folder with yearly subfolders with all
messages for that year stored and searchable. I have a decade of
messages stored...be careful what you email me ;-)
Jonathan N. Little
> lots of these “Standards” conceptions are fairytale. Remember, it was
> Netscape who forced us the non-standard, devious, hated,
I don't think devious was the impetus behind any of your list, some we
bad ideas and later exploited for nefarious purposes, but it was and
still is a developing technology.
> cookies,
cookies are a necessary mechanism to provide persistence and continuity
to the stateless protocol http. Without them you cannot have online
commerce, even with server-side sessions you still really need
client-side cookies to hold the session id. Yes cookies are abused by
some but are needed for legitimate transactions,
> javascript,
javascript is a very useful tool to enhance a site's functionality. In
the early days is was employed for tasks now better served by
server-side when server-side technologies where rare, expensive, or
non-existent. Abuse has force it into the option augmentation and is bad
practice to rely on it for your sites functionality.
> frames,
frames were an attempt tp allow modular assembly for website before
server-side option were readily available. Abuse and better server-side
options limits its usefulness in my opinion.
> iframes,
Netscape was not the culprit here, MS devised those puppies...
> among other things. Some, are actually
> useful, needed, became “standard”, others, forgotten. Same with a
> million things Microsoft did or Apple (today with its iPad and stuff),
> and lots other corporations with other techs.
The thing to remember is web development is an emerging and evolving
technology. What was good practice in 1995 is not always good practice
in 2010. Things have changed.
Beauregard T. Shagnasty
> ... BTW you should upgrade, Lucid is much better than Hardy. I had no
> trouble at all upgrading any of mine. Even the ones I did with a
> straight upgrade.
I've been seriously contemplating a new box. Big drives, ultra fast.
<g> I'm probably going to move to Lucid then, and relegate this Hardy
box to shelf - "emergency spare" or some such.
Xah Lee
> > lots of these “Standards” conceptions are fairytale. Remember, it was
> > Netscape who forced us the non-standard, devious, hated, cookies,
> > javascript, frames, iframes, among other things.
>
> Do you hate cookies, JavaScript, and (I)frames?
are you denying that cookies, javascript, was hated and unwelcome?
> If you are a webprogrammer, I suggest you find another job.
> Most professions don't demand knowledge about these things.
i retort that you mob toilet at McDonalds. ☺
> > Some, are actually
> > useful, needed, became “standard”, others, forgotten. Same with a
> > million things Microsoft did or Apple (today with its iPad and stuff),
> > and lots other corporations with other techs.
>
> I think you missed the reasons why Microsoft is extra unpopular.
> It has nothing to do with failed techs and everything with deliberately
> creating confusion and trouble in the browsermarket.
> If you didn't notice that you are either poorly informed, very dense, or
> working for M$ and paid to post like you do.
it is common knowledge that Microsoft's ethical quality is
controversial.
but do make a point, man. Hopefully a fresh one.
> > And lots of Microsoft hatred came from jealousy spread by competing
> > big corps, in particular, Sun Microsystems (am very glad it's dead).
>
> OK, that's it.
> [I mostly lurk around here, but this remark triggered me to post.]
>
> You are very *glad* Sun is gone?
> I guess you are also glad the Oracle vultures now own all the Java
> patents, and is teasing Android with it?
> And who will be next?
> So many use Java.
> I guess you are one of those that like software patents a lot.
>
> I think Richard Stallman was right after all when he warned about this,
> in the days Sun still owned it and all seemed fine.
Richard Stallman said of Java as: “Free but Shackled - The Java Trap”.
You can web serch to find his essay.
In the beginning while Sun Microsystems is soaring (late 1990s) due to
mostly Java, it tried all it can to stop java run smoothly on linux.
Obviously, if java runs linux great, who'd buy Sun's hardware? which
it makes most of its dough at the time. But dot come went burst, and
Sun fucked up, Java becomes just another lang in mostly server market,
and when Sun is at the brink of death in late 2000s, it Open Sourced
java, to Richard Stallman's applause. Like Netscape/AOL did with
Netscape browser. But that saved neither.
> > Now we have the hot potato html5, which is insidious turn of what
> > “standard” means. It effectively says: forget about what we taught you
> > about standards in the past 10 years, this is new rule!
>
> Is it saying that?
> I think I recognized quite a few elements from html4 specs in html5
> drafts. Are you maybe exaggerating a little here?
> You will be able to learn HTML5 just fine if you try.
... one needs to be familiar with the history of sgml/html/xml/htm5 to
understand these issues.
> > and Google is
> > putting its feet into the “standard” mix, with its nofollow “non-
> > standard standard” shit to put their search engine implementation at
> > ease, and sidewiki and stuff, and none of google's pages are html
> > valid (and no, this “do no evil” company don't even try; never in
> > their hundreds of webmaster tips and guidlines mention anything about
> > encouragement for valid html as far as i know).
>
> You are a Microserf, right?
> Anything that challenges M$ is attacked by you: Sun, Google.
hum?
i think Google is a nice company, all things considered. I support
Google. I don't like Microsoft much, but i find Microsoft haters
despicable. If anything, i'm a downright unix hater.
• 〈On Microsoft Hatred〉
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/mshatred155.html
• 〈The Unix Pestilence〉
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/freebooks.html
btw, i switched to Microsoft as my main machine last year, from 20
years of Mac. Didn't really want to, but just out of practical need...
see
• 〈Switching from Mac/Unix To PC/Windows〉
http://xahlee.org/mswin/switch_to_windows.html
> About Google: Why shouldn't they have a word in HTML5?
> It is a huge internet company.
humm... in this fashion, we might ask: why shouldn't Microsoft have a
word about everything, they are huge.
> > when the many tech geeking web monkeys flame Microsoft for evil non
> > standard, how come we don't ever hear it about Google?
>
> You don't know why?
> Because Google didn't try to use their desktop monopoly to force users
> to surf the web with a substandard unsafe internetbrowser.
> That is why.
what does monopoly mean to you? quote:
Q: Microsoft's Operating System is used over 90% of PCs. If that's not
monopoly, i don't know what is.
A: Now suppose there is a very ethical company E, whose products have
the best performance/price ratio, and making all the competitors
looking so majorly stupid and ultimately won over 90% of the market as
decided by consumers. Is E now a monopoly?
from: • 〈The Microsoft Hatred FAQ〉
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/mshatredfaq.html
> Don't get me wrong: I don't trust Google either. ;-)
i have watched google quite closely, far more than i'd bother with
Microsoft (cause i never cared or had much interest in Microsoft).
Pretty much watched google grew up. I find google trustworthy, and i
use a host of Google services. Whether they will be trustful in the
future we shall see.
> In my opinion it is best to stay a little paranoid once trying to
> understand the dynamics in billion dollar markets. That includes Google.
i think what most programer need is basics of economics, or social
sciences, such as history, philosophy, as in taking a course in
college, not reading blogs and slashdot and groklaw shit.
i highly recommend:
• 〈Reading Notes on Basic Economics〉
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/jdini/basic_economics.html
audio and kindle version also available. For those open/free-
anarchists, it's on piracy network too.
> > Google has far
> > more non-standard html pages and now far more hegemony on the web than
> > Microsoft ever did. Is Google the monopoly?
>
> <shrugs>
> As long as Google's HTML renders reasonably on my browser and they
> deliver the content I am searching for, I don't care too much.
lol. isn't that what people hate IE for?
> <snip KML rant: You write too much.>
>
> Are you on the Micosoft paylist? You are far from objective.
yes, they call me a troll. In late years, i take that as a compliment.
☺
Xah
Osmo Saarikumpu
David E. Ross kirjoitti:
>> On 9/15/10 11:36 PM, Osmo Saarikumpu wrote:
>> JFTR, the folders do not have to be on the desktop for drag & drop to work.
> To drop, the folder must either reside on my desktop or else be open on
> my desktop.
The desktop is just another folder among others. You might want to open
Windows Explorer (<kbd>Windows</kbd> + <kbd>e</kbd>), which displays the
hierarchical structure of your drives, folders and files. Using Windows
Explorer, you can drag the image file to any drive or folder you desire.
--
HTH, Osmo
Jonathan N. Little
You just cannot drag it from Opera...
Phillip Jones
to have a show a certain way and because he she has written a certain
way it shows to different ways with 10 different Browsers hows that an
strength.
Jonathan N. Little
> I don't know if that is a strength or not. if a web designer intended
> to have a show a certain way and because he she has written a certain
> way it shows to different ways with 10 different Browsers hows that an
> strength.
If the web designer improperly designed their snappy website with gray
10px-text on a black background AND that was the ONLY way it could be
displayed, then it does not take too much insight to see that it is
going to be the problem for the 50 or 60+ person with not-so-young eyes!
Whereas if the designer embraces the flexible aspects of the media
which allows the design to incorporate the user defaults then the page
is accessible to the not-so-young, or on a small screen device, or big
projection screen,...or whatever. That is a strength--accessible
communication.
dorayme
John Dunlop <dunlo...@ymail.com> wrote:
...
>
> Would you not say that it is a strength of the World Wide Web, as opposed
> to traditional print media, that a web page doesn't need to have a uniform
> appearance across browsers?
The sentiment behind this is good.
It is a tremendous strength of the website that users have their
very own preferences for viewing the material. A bad website is
one that strongly tries to railroad all users into having the
page exactly as the webpage maker sees it. These are the authors
who are the most disappointed at the realisation that users do
not see what they see. And mostly with good reason: because they
are not conscious that they *are railroading*, their pages become
variously unusable for some people.
In a library some need to find a section for Large Print books
and be lucky to find the book of their choice there. A person
with normal vision would be relieved to find a version in not so
large print. Neither would be very happy if some or all of their
choice was unreadable. Neither are disappointed because the
people who make these versions know what they are doing. The
website maker needs to be these two publishers (and more) rolled
into one.
While this sounds daunting, there is much help for people to
learn the trade. The benefit is that most all users, without
lifting a finger much, get the material offered in a way that is
maximally convenient to them. That *one* production (the website)
can achieve this is undoubtedly a strength.
--
dorayme
David E. Ross
So I must use Windows Explorer or some other means to navigate to where
the target folder is visible on my desktop. (No, I don't have to open
the target folder; I merely have to have it visible so that I can drop
into it.) Then, to keep the target folder visible, I must reduce the
size of my browser window. Finally, I select the image on my browser
window, drag it to the target folder while holding down my mouse's left
button, and then let go of the mouse button. Of course, I will likely
then want to close Windows Explorer or what ever folder I had to open to
see the target folder. Also, if my hand is unsteady on my mouse or if I
run out of room for moving my mouse, the image might drop into some
unintended location.
Somehow, it seems so much easier to select the image on my browser
window, right-click to get a pull-down context menu, select "Save image
as", navigate to the target folder in the file selection window, and
click the Save button. Because the target folder does not have to be
visible on my desktop, I don't have to reduce the size of my browser
window; and I don't have to close Windows Explorer or what ever folder I
had to open to see the target folder. And I have far less risk from an
unsteady hand.
This is why I never knew until this week -- after years and years of
using Netscape Navigator, Mozilla Suite, and Seamonkey -- that a
drag-and-drop capability exists, a capability that appears more bother
than it's worth.
--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>.
Anyone who thinks government owns a monopoly on inefficient, obstructive
bureaucracy has obviously never worked for a large corporation.
© 1997 by David E. Ross
Jonathan N. Little
> Somehow, it seems so much easier to select the image on my browser
> window, right-click to get a pull-down context menu, select "Save image
> as", navigate to the target folder in the file selection window, and
> click the Save button. Because the target folder does not have to be
> visible on my desktop, I don't have to reduce the size of my browser
> window; and I don't have to close Windows Explorer or what ever folder I
> had to open to see the target folder. And I have far less risk from an
> unsteady hand.
Well it all depends on how you use your browser and what screen
resolution is. I almost never have my browser window maximized and since
I have 2 19" monitors side by side drag 'n drop is a 1-step procedure
verses your 4-step one...
Phillip Jones
> Phillip Jones wrote:
>
>> I don't know if that is a strength or not. if a web designer intended
>> to have a show a certain way and because he she has written a certain
>> way it shows to different ways with 10 different Browsers hows that an
>> strength.
>
> If the web designer improperly designed their snappy website with gray
> 10px-text on a black background AND that was the ONLY way it could be
> displayed, then it does not take too much insight to see that it is
> going to be the problem for the 50 or 60+ person with not-so-young eyes!
> Whereas if the designer embraces the flexible aspects of the media
> which allows the design to incorporate the user defaults then the page
> is accessible to the not-so-young, or on a small screen device, or big
> projection screen,...or whatever. That is a strength--accessible
> communication.
>
>
Rob W.
>
> That is one (-and maybe the only) thing I like about xhtml: it's
> refusal to display on many errors.
Would you care to elaborate a little on that,
for the sake of my education.
Either I don't understand what you're saying here
or my understanding of browsers is incorrect.
--
rw
Xah Lee
lol David. Your personal methodology of operating the browser, perhaps
computer, is so outdated, inefficient.
Try this simple test:
suppose your job is to save images to local drive. Suppose, you doing
a lot research, and need to collect many images to the local disk,
selectively. (so, automation by scripting is out)
Now, let's say, you need to view one thousand images of a particular
research subject, and 20% of them you need to save to your disk.
you'll quickly find, the most efficient way is drag n drop.
the simplest example is just porn. That's why every one knows about
this method.
But for other examples i actually need to do, view thousands of photos
and save perhaps 10% of them and eventually only use perhaps 2% of
them, see for examples:
• 〈Batgirl Craze (page 1)〉
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/lacru/batgirl.html
• 〈Xah's Visual Arts Gallery〉
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/lacru/lacru.html
• 〈Crop Circle Gallery〉
http://xahlee.org/crop_circles/index.html
• 〈Beautiful Architectures〉
http://xahlee.org/dinju/dinju.html
the above are just personal examples, but there are lots of other
smaller cases. For example, you know there's icons for facebook,
twitter, webfeed/rss, everywhere right? As a webmaster, at some point
you probably wanted to add such a feature to your site and sporting a
icon. So, you have now the job of picking out a icon. For a particular
service, let's say twitter, there are tens of icons people have
created (and no, there's not really one “standard” or “official”, and
only webfeed icon is SOMEWHAT a exception). So, you need to image
search at all the icons and pick the ones you want (possibly with
site's url, auhtor info, for credit ). In the process, usually you
need to save 5 or more to your disk, sometimes the whole html content,
sometimes just url, sometimes just snippet of text. (then later on
process the info you gathered and pick one for your site) The most
efficient, on-the-spot, method for this is just drag and drop. (these
tasks are usually small and spontaneous and irregular, so you can't
really spend time to prepare a script for automation, and if you do,
usually you end up spending more time than worth)
see also:
• 〈Keyboarding & Macros in Mac and Windows (How to Increase Your
Computer Operation Efficiency)〉
http://xahlee.org/mswin/keyboard_macros.html
• 〈How to rsync, unison, wget, curl〉
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/unix_tips.html
--------------------------------------------------
Keyboarding & Macros in Mac and Windows (How to Increase Your Computer
Operation Efficiency)
Xah Lee, 2009-05-26, 2009-08-26, 2009-10-06
I'm a operation efficiency nerd. When operating a computer, you have
to switch apps, click links/checkbox/buttons, invoke menus, open/close
window or tab, adjust volume, change songs, switch input focus, switch
fields, input/edit text, or perform pointer oriented input such as in
a image editing software. (here, we are excluding other forms of input
such as voice) In general, all these are inputs, done by using input
systems, a combination of software and hardware. Typically, the
hardware is just keyboard and mouse (or touchpad or trackball). The
software part is the interfaces used in the OS and various apps.
Operation efficiency means you are able to achieve a input task with
the least number of units of physical exertion, basically means less
keystrokes, less mouse travel, and most importantly, less brain work
to carry the task out. (brain work, such as the need to eyeball a
process, is actually the most costy.)
As a concrete example, let's say you have a url in a text editor. Say
you want to view that url in a browser. There are many ways to achieve
that. One way, is to use mouse to select the url, right click to
select the copy menu, switch or launch a browser (many ways to do
this), put focus on the url field, then right click to paste it, then
hit Enter to load the url. This method, is rather most typical. As a
example of a less efficient way, is to actually type the url text in
the browser field. As a example of more efficient way, is by pressing
keys to copy & paste instead of using the mouse. (because, using the
mouse to select a menu item, involves precision exertion and
eyeballing brain work to hit the right menu item)
Now let's consider the task of switch/launching a web browser. There
are different methods of varying efficiency. For example, a typical
savvy user will press “Alt+Tab” to switch to it if it already
launched. Otherwise, he may pull Start menu with mouse, then select
the browser app from the menu. Or, she may press the Start key with
keyboard, and press arrow keys to select the browser app from menu
(this is more efficient).
But as a example of a more advanced system, is for someone to have a
customized shortcut setup so one single button press will launch the
right browser, and if it is already running, switching to it. (in
fact, many keyboards have a special key for this, usually labled “Web/
Home”.)
But, let's consider a even more advanced operation. For someone using
emacs, he may have a scripted customization such that he presses one
single button, and a browser is auto launched/switched and the url
automatically loaded. (as you get more advanced in efficiency, you
also needs more time in learning automation systems, from macro tools
to scripting languages.)
I don't care if you are a linux user, whatever Ratpoison interface you
are using, what command-line expert you are, or how you've customized
your keyboard with X11 xmodmap, i assure you, that i'm able to operate
my Mac or Windows with my own custom setup more efficient than you,
and faster than you too. (efficiency doesn't ensure fast, because
speed involves performance aspect too (e.g. if you are a centenarian,
doesn't matter how efficient your methods are, you are likely to be
slower than a average 18 years old computer user.). But since i'm
athletic and touch type 85 wpm, so, adding my efficiency, i'm
certainly faster too.)
I use a Dvorak keyboard layout, and on either Mac or Windows, i am
intimately familiar with ALL its keyboard shortcuts. ALL. Not just
that. I've also explored to the hilt on how to customize the system,
may it be key macros, some system automation scripting, or some level
of OS modification, on either OS. But that's not all. Even knowing all
of the above, to become most efficient, you must have arrived at a
operational method that symphonize each aspect of the system to achive
maximum over all efficiency. (input aspects include: keyboard
shortcuts, macros, key remappings, and physical keyboard hardware
(those modifiers and extra buttons, their physical positions, software
keymappings), and the OS behavior and each app's behavior). It is
important that one must take all aspects into consideration if the
goal is ultimate operational efficiency. For example, suppose you are
a keyboard freak like many linux tech geekers who take every
opportunity to insist that mouse users are idiots. However, if the
task is opening various links in a browser, keyboard operation is a
magnitude slower than using a mouse. This is just a obvious example,
similar other obvious examples are operating image editing or drawing
software, including many gaming situations or 3D modeling environment,
where keyboard as a input system are simply unworkable.
How to Increase Your Computer Operation Efficiency
Here's some advice for Mac and Windows users for operational
efficiency. The following list is roughly ordered from the most
important tips first.
Learn Touch Typing
Most programers who don't touch type will start to groan when seeing
this. Well, sorry fellas, but this is actually the most important tip
for efficiency. Bite the bullet.
There is a question about whether to learn the Dvorak Keyboard Layout.
If you don't already touch type, I highly recommend learning touch
type with Dvorak. The drawback is that you won't be able to hop to any
keyboard and start touch typing, at public libraries, or co-worker's
computers, but you can always hunt-n-peck with QWERTY.
Use A Good Keyboard
Use a good keyboard, preferably Microsoft's ergonomic ones. For tips
on choosing a good keyboard, see: Computer Keyboards Gallery.
I recommend Microsoft's Ergonomic 4000. It is a split, ergonomic, full-
key, full-featured keyboards.
Master OS's shortcut system
Master OS's shortcut system. See:
Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
Microsoft Windows Keyboard Shortcuts
“Master” means you know all the shortcuts in the OS, and you've examed
and experienced and have decided which are better for you.
Learn The OS's Keyboard Config Settings
Learn the OS's ways to config the keyboard. On Windows, it's the
keyboard icon under Window's Control Panel. On Mac, it's the Keyboard
icon under System Preference. They allow you to tweak global keyboard
hotkey settings, to various degrees.
If you have a Microsoft keyboard, i recommend the bundled IntelliType
software. (comes in for both Windows and Mac versions) It lets you
remap or disable keys or define macros to some extent.
Get A Keyboard Macro Tool
Use macros and other key-remapping or app launching software. On the
Mac, i recommend Quicksilver. On Windows, i recommend Autohotkey. Both
are free. (See: AutoHotkey Basics)
Note that there are also very good commercial ones. I've used QuicKeys
on the Mac from 1991 to 2002. QuicKeys is now sold by http://startly.com/
(for Mac and Win). On the Mac, there's also Keyboard Maestro from
http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/ i've used.
Learn A Scripting Lang
On the Mac: Automator and AppleScript.
On Windows, learn PowerShell. (See: PowerShell Tutorial) (There's also
Visual Basic and cmd.exe, but PowerShell is the new .NET based shell
that is more flexible, powerful, and suitable for automation and sys
admin.)
Keyboard macros, launchers, shells, scripting langs, all work together
as automation tools. For example, you often want a hotkey to invoke
some script.
Learn OS's Keybinding API
Learn the OS's keybinding system or API. On the Mac it's the
DefaultKeyBinding.dict system. It lets you re-define keys across OS to
some extent by a simple config file. See: How To Create Your Own
Keybinding In Mac OS X.
I'm not sure what's on Windows. Registry has a lot to do with
keybindings at least. There are several tools too, see: How To Create
Your Own Keybinding In Microsoft Windows.
Xah ∑ xahlee.org ☄
dorayme
<de28181c-4cd1-4bb8...@l38g2000pro.googlegroups.co
> Try this simple test:
>
> suppose your job is to save images to local drive. Suppose, you doing
> a lot research, and need to collect many images to the local disk,
> selectively. (so, automation by scripting is out)
>
> Now, let's say, you need to view one thousand images of a particular
> research subject, and 20% of them you need to save to your disk.
>
> you'll quickly find, the most efficient way is drag n drop.
>
> the simplest example is just porn. That's why every one knows about
> this method.
Why do you quote so much? To cure this, please read:
<http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
The second thing is this, why would you suppose the porn example
is the simplest.
Third, why would you suppose that everyone is like you and knows
the drag and drop from this source? In my case, my grandma taught
me to use a Mac and drag and drop is like breathing on a Mac. Not
a rude part on show in any of her lessons.
There is a fourth thing that is irritating me: wtf are you doing
in your editor re character saving, I am always having to
Edit/Compose As/Western (Mac Roman) your posts in my usenet
reader.
--
dorayme
Xah Lee
On Sep 18, 1:25 am, dorayme <dora...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> In article
> <de28181c-4cd1-4bb8-a934-9ba5f2cfe...@l38g2000pro.googlegroups.co
> m>,
> Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Try this simple test:
>
> > suppose your job is to save images to local drive. Suppose, you doing
> > a lot research, and need to collect many images to the local disk,
> > selectively. (so, automation by scripting is out)
>
> > Now, let's say, you need to view one thousand images of a particular
> > research subject, and 20% of them you need to save to your disk.
>
> > you'll quickly find, the most efficient way is drag n drop.
>
> > the simplest example is just porn. That's why every one knows about
> > this method.
>
> Why do you quote so much? To cure this, please read:
>
> <http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
lol. i realized it's all dinasours here... quoting a article of 〈How
do I quote correctly in Usenet?〉?
i don't even think i heard of the word netiquette in recent years.
in 1990s, everyday. In early 2000s, few times a year. In 2010: “what
the heck is netiquette??”
> The second thing is this, why would you suppose the porn example
> is the simplest.
cause everyone's doing it behind everyone's back? Quote:
«PS Porn is a $13 giga usd industry per year in USA, according to New
York Times. Source.»
«I'd like to know the relative sizes of different industries. e.g.
film industry, video game industry, software industry. (I read
somewhere that porn revenue in US is more than all sports
entertainment industries combined (e.g. baseball, basketball,
football).) If you find a referenc, please let me know!»
• 〈Moving Porn out of XahLee.org〉
http://xahlee.org/sex/moving_porn_out.html
• 〈Porn Freedom (What Is Obscenity?)〉
http://xahlee.org/sex/porn_freedom.html
> Third, why would you suppose that everyone is like you and knows
> the drag and drop from this source? In my case, my grandma taught
> me to use a Mac and drag and drop is like breathing on a Mac. Not
> a rude part on show in any of her lessons.
humm... interesting question. The question is, what percentage of
people knows about drag'n'drop.
To be specific, and let me narrow this to power users, programers, and
web developers, or, people who do code html. My guess is that it's
almost 100%. I don't remember when's the first time i learned of
drag'n'drop images from browser to a folder to save. But am guessing
must be late 1990s... but it might also be early 2000s.
i'm rather really surprised with David E Scott. Maybe he lives in a
cave. ☺
> There is a fourth thing that is irritating me: wtf are you doing
> in your editor re character saving, I am always having to
> Edit/Compose As/Western (Mac Roman) your posts in my usenet
> reader.
you also lives in a cave. ☺
it's unicode, man. See:
• 〈UNICODE Basics: What's Character Encoding, UTF-8, and All That?〉
http://xahlee.org/emacs/unicode_basics.html
• 〈Unicode Popularity On Web〉
http://xahlee.org/comp/unicode_on_web.html
• 〈Sample Unicode Characters〉
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t1/20040505_unicode.html
btw, the 〈angle quote〉 is chinese convention. See:
• 〈Intro to Chinese Punctuation with Computer Language Syntax
Perspectives〉
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/bangu/chinese_punctuation.html
and in recent months i decided to use unicode smiley ☺ instead of the
ascii hack :) which is really silly.
as for other unicode chars i use often, such as “curly quote”, 【Ctrl
+C】, 「corner bracket」, etc, you can see rational here:
• 〈Transform HTML Tags with Emacs Lisp〉
http://xahlee.org/emacs/elisp_transform_html_tags.html
what newsgroup ware u using? you probably should update to something
more modern. For newsgroups, i simply just use groups.google.com e.g.
Xah ∑ xahlee.org ☄
Jonathan N. Little
> Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>> Phillip Jones wrote:
>>
>>> I don't know if that is a strength or not. if a web designer intended
>>> to have a show a certain way and because he she has written a certain
>>> way it shows to different ways with 10 different Browsers hows that an
>>> strength.
>>
>> If the web designer improperly designed their snappy website with gray
>> 10px-text on a black background AND that was the ONLY way it could be
>> displayed, then it does not take too much insight to see that it is
>> going to be the problem for the 50 or 60+ person with not-so-young eyes!
>> Whereas if the designer embraces the flexible aspects of the media
>> which allows the design to incorporate the user defaults then the page
>> is accessible to the not-so-young, or on a small screen device, or big
>> projection screen,...or whatever. That is a strength--accessible
>> communication.
>>
>>
> Yes. but many web designers don't pay attention to that.
>
True, a lot of poorly designed sites in the wild but it doesn't make it
right, i.e., you don't have to add one more to the heap.
Nisse Engström
> Phillip Jones wrote:
>
>> I don't know if that is a strength or not. if a web designer intended
>> to have a show a certain way and because he she has written a certain
>> way it shows to different ways with 10 different Browsers hows that an
>> strength.
>
> If the web designer improperly designed their snappy website with gray
> 10px-text on a black background AND that was the ONLY way it could be
> displayed, then it does not take too much insight to see that it is
> going to be the problem for the 50 or 60+ person with not-so-young eyes!
> Whereas if the designer embraces the flexible aspects of the media
> which allows the design to incorporate the user defaults then the page
> is accessible to the not-so-young, or on a small screen device, or big
> projection screen,...or whatever. That is a strength--accessible
> communication.
Or a 30+ whippersnapper who can read flyspeck-lingo just
fine but chooses not to, because the effort *by far*
outweighs the importance of the web site. Of course, this
is not a problem for most web deezigners as I'll just fall
outside the $random portion of the target audience that
they consider important.
It's not like most web sites are without competition
these days.
/Nisse
Chris F.A. Johnson
...
> Now, let's say, you need to view one thousand images of a particular
> research subject, and 20% of them you need to save to your disk.
>
> you'll quickly find, the most efficient way is drag n drop.
That would be far too slow. I'd use a simple shell script so that
the moving could be done with a single keystroke.
--
Chris F.A. Johnson
<http://torontowebdesign.cfaj.ca>
Jonathan N. Little
> On 2010-09-18, Xah Lee wrote:
> ...
>> Now, let's say, you need to view one thousand images of a particular
>> research subject, and 20% of them you need to save to your disk.
>>
>> you'll quickly find, the most efficient way is drag n drop.
>
> That would be far too slow. I'd use a simple shell script so that
> the moving could be done with a single keystroke.
>
If you are dumping ALL images, but I think the OP was visually choosing
images and being selective.
Chris F.A. Johnson
> Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
>> On 2010-09-18, Xah Lee wrote:
>> ...
>>> Now, let's say, you need to view one thousand images of a particular
>>> research subject, and 20% of them you need to save to your disk.
>>>
>>> you'll quickly find, the most efficient way is drag n drop.
>>
>> That would be far too slow. I'd use a simple shell script so that
>> the moving could be done with a single keystroke.
>
> If you are dumping ALL images, but I think the OP was visually choosing
> images and being selective.
I was referring to being selective. With a single keystroke I can
choose whether to save an image, or select which directory to move
it to, or even to delete it.
Scott Bryce
> Why do you go on and on so much about porn?
Haven't you guys figured it out yet? Just killfile him. Life will be
much better that way.
Beauregard T. Shagnasty
> How come only your posts look like shit in my newsreader?
You've never encountered Jeff Relf then?
--
-bts
-This poast is valid through December 21, 2012
dorayme
Scott Bryce <sbr...@scottbryce.com> wrote:
Do you really suppose that the hunt down and kill instinct from
millions of years ago can just be put aside like that? How
evolved are you? <g>
--
dorayme
Neredbojias
Ahem. If an xhtml page has an error, say a syntax error, de browser
shows a little error message roughly something like "Parsing error on
line..." instead of page content. Of course, the markup needs to be
parsed as xhtml by the xml parser in the browser; if it's parsed as
plain old html, all bets are off. Ie either doesn't have an
xhtml-parsing xml parser or doesn't use it, and other browsers often
default to regular (sgml) parsing unless a header (/meta) explicitly
sets the Content-Type to application/xhtml+xml. I'm not a big fan of
xhtml for all its machinations and limitations but I do like the
display-nothing-but-an-error-message-if-there-is-an-error aspect of it.
(I ?think? you also need to delimit [quote] attribute values and the
like which is another good thing.)
--
Neredbojias
dorayme
"Beauregard T. Shagnasty" <a.non...@example.invalid> wrote:
> dorayme wrote:
>
> > How come only your posts look like shit in my newsreader?
>
> You've never encountered Jeff Relf then?
I don't think I have had the pleasure?
--
dorayme