Farr configuration decision: what's your opinion?

[jgpaiva]

Mouser has made a small but important change on the latest version of farr.
I'm in disagreement with it, but mouser presented a good explanation for this change.
He opted by adding an option for this, but we're wondering which one should be the default setting.

So here's the change. On previous versions, when you had something selected on the following option:


When you started farr, you'd get something like:
Farr configuration decision: what's your opinion?

Now, you get something like:
Farr configuration decision: what's your opinion?

The difference is in the editbox, before, the text was pre-selected, now it isn't.
My rationale for having it selected, is that when you bring up farr, you can just type and search for anything.
Mouser's rationaly for not having it selected, is that if you have an alias like the pre-included "search" alias, you might want to call farr and just complete the command line.

So, the question is: which one do you prefer? the old method or the new method?

[mouser]

we should say a few more things:

• I'm going to add a checkbox option so you can choose for a hotkey which behavior you want, so the question is simply which is better as a default.
• In the first example (pre-selected text), you would hit end key to go to end and simulate initial state of 2nd example.
• In the second example (non-selected text), you would hit escape key once to select all text and simulate the 1st example.

[nitrix-ud]

i vote non-selected text

... and i'm still suggesting an {enter} command
it would allow us to create great hotkeys:
select text, hotkey which searches google...
select a word, hotkey to get it defined...
select a mathematical expression, press hotkey, get result in clipboard (thanks to fc)

 

[yksyks]

I vote for non-selected text, too. Typing the End key might be boring, while pressing Esc when you're about to start something over is logical and easier.

[allen]

Selected text makes a lot more sense to me (granted, that's how I use it...).

It's expected bahavior, in my opinion--you tab into any web form, address bar, windows text field -- the text is highlighted, standard.

Also, I'd think users that would be using alias[es] as their primary functionality of FARR would be more advanced users, or at least more experienced, not first timers.  So I'd expect the client behavior to reflect that.

I think the primary two questions to ask yourself are--
  1. Is the majority of the userbase using FARR with aliases the majority of the time
  2. If 1 is no, but you want it to become yes, is there sufficient intuitive aliases pre-packaged with enough documentation and nudging to encourage them to figure out aliases before they even get a feel for the program?

It's not a huge deal, as long as it's option, but IMO selected makes more sense and doesn't break common/expected behavior.  And, like I said, seems more like an experienced user rather than new user trick to me--and defaults are all about the nubs.

[Ehtyar]

Selected text IMO also, Allen put it well enough for the both of us i think.

Ehtyar.

[justice]

Selected text for me now because of the new hotkey system you can setup a 'startup' alias too. Using hotkeys the you'd get the non-selected text.
using the 'default value' you'd get selected text 

But i've never had the need to use the option in the start post myself. Possibly the hotkey functionality makes the start post functionality obsolete and can be removed?

[jgpaiva]

Possibly the hotkey functionality makes the start post functionality obsolete and can be removed?

-justice (July 21, 2007, 07:30 AM)

That "start text" has been moved to the hotkey system, the screnshot i grabbed is from the "hotkey configuration" menu.

[TucknDar]

Selected text IMO also, Allen put it well enough for the both of us i think.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (July 21, 2007, 07:09 AM)

What Ehtyar said.

[allen]

Finally updated--apparently there isn't yet that check box to make it auto-highlight... and worse, has the option to configure my default launch text been removed? I can't figure out how to clear it . . . and really don't like having to hit escape every time I launch FARR.  Manual editing ini files "ftw"

[mouser]

allen,
you know set the text to show on start (including blank), by going to the hotkey configuration.
if you want it to start blank, then set a blank search start text and

• checkbox the option to set searchedit.

in this way, you can configure different hotkeys to do different things.

new version will be up tonight with the highlighting option.

[allen]

Ahh, I expected I was missing something. Thanks for clearing that up mouser!