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Implement features that are known to be loved in other programs, on your own

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justice:
Should the OS not implement smooth scroll instead of the application? Perhaps it's not up to the app dev to provide functionality that's the OS'es to fix. ;) Same goes for shortcuts.

anandcoral:
Allow me to put my view and notes from experience here.

@urlwolf has made a simple query "Why a programmer can not put feature X in his app A, which exist in app B made by another programmer on another platform/os/hardware etc."

From the time of DOS I could not reply to this simple question to any of my users satisfaction without being called arrogant. But now I have taken help from GOD's creation and have the answer for it.

User will ask "Why can't Notepad show bold and italics in same line as seen in Word, though both are editor and made by same company ?" The answer is "It is created that way to solve intended purpose".

GOD created hand and legs differently for different purpose. Same way notepad and word are created differently for different purpose. Notepad can not show bold/italics but Word can not load faster. If my little finger is smaller than middle one; it is intendend to be like that. At least we can rest assure that GOD did not have the resource and time problem of us programmer. HE could very easily made all figure same length and also could have added wings to our back.

My earlier Boss (fifteen years or so ago) requested me to make the invoice entry look like the actual printed invoice, on screen; as he has seen at his friends publishing house. He was referring to Ventura Publisher (PageMaker was another one), only problem was that he was expecting me to make it in his 8 bit green colour CRT in dBaseII, on which the inventory app I have made.

All these does not mean that we ignore users request. They are our existence. The technology and money was there but Nokia did not make a touch screen phone till Apple did it. Now I am a happy user of Nokia 5230 which is 1/4 of the price of iPhone and does all "what I need".

We have to listen to users and solve keeping in mind the time and money factor.

In one of my implementation, I installed IE4 at a clients site as the website I made did not work correctly in Netscape, and the client paid me for it. He wanted it to work.

So to put it happily to the demanding user, "Yes it can be done, but will take X time and Y money", but you must forsee the solution, as some users do pay for what they want.

BTW, I did made the invoice to show in graphics mode using dBaseII and GWbasic, though only preview and not the input. If any one used WordPerfect will know, it had similar feature for editing the document in text mode and previewing it graphics mode, in DOS.

Regards,

Anand

skwire:
I totally understand the complexity of some of these features. Some other, like breadcrumbs, are trivial, though.
-urlwolf (August 17, 2011, 02:42 AM)
--- End quote ---

See?  This is exactly what I'm talking about.  How are you certain this is trivial?  Are you a developer that has written some "breadcrumb code" into your own app?  Most breadcrumb implementations I've seen seem to manipulate a standard ToolbarWindow32 class control.  Manipulating those controls smoothly in real-time can be a right pain in the arse.

rgdot:
Having read all this I have some demands for NANY 2012






Just kidding  :P

app103:
I totally understand the complexity of some of these features. Some other, like breadcrumbs, are trivial, though.
-urlwolf (August 17, 2011, 02:42 AM)
--- End quote ---

Maybe it is trivial...maybe it is not. I can't tell you because I don't even know what you are talking about, which is another reason why some features do not exist in some apps.

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