[TextMate] Preferences window (was ProFont)

[marc]

All the way at the bottom...!

On 07/10/2004, at 11:28 AM, Jan Sabbe wrote:

> Op 7-okt-04 om 00:04 heeft Sune Foldager het volgende geschreven:
>
>> On 6/10-2004, at 23:55, Carl-Johan Kihlbom wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't understand your argument about the Preferences. TextMate 
>>> still has a lot of preferences, such as font, antialiasing, tab 
>>> width, etc., but instead of keeping them all together in one place 
>>> where they're easy to find they are spread out and hidden among the 
>>> other menus. How is that easy and straight forward?
>>
>> I don't agree that they are spread out and hidden... well, they are 
>> spread out but they arein the menus where they logically belong. For 
>> example, font setting is in the view menu, stuff that determines how 
>> the editor reacts to your input is in the behaviour menu, and stuff 
>> relating to syntax is also in the view menu etc. Putting it all in a 
>> prefs window is not much better: It takes longer time to change, and 
>> many people will check the menus first to see if it is not considered 
>> "deep" enough to end up in the prefs, I think.
>
> Well, I can't speak for other people, but one of the first things I 
> wanted to do when I started TextMate, was change fore and background 
> color of a normal text window (to white on black).
> The first thing I did was go to the Applications menu, to check if 
> there was a Preferences dialog..

Well, yes, the 1st thing I did was look for the preferences, but it 
only took a minute to realise that the settings were in the menus... 
for those arguing convention, there's a long history of this in pre-OS 
X days...

> Now, it wasn't hard to find it in the View menu I wondered two things 
> when doing this, would it change color for just one window, or for all 
> windows in the applications. I also wondered if it would save state.

Yes, this is a very good counter argument to the premise that exposing 
the prefs is more usable/accessible -- I've long argued for memory 
(state retention) in applications, but if that's not the ruling 
convention, you're initially left wondering if you'll have to set the 
features each time... but again, it only takes opening your 2nd file to 
realise that's not the case...

...once learned does the lack of a preference window cause serious 
problems?

> It wasn't really a big problem, but in my personal case, a Preferences 
> window would have been more natural/obvious. It didn't really annoy 
> me, but it would just be smoother.

Arguably true.

For all the apparent angst about the preferences window, I don't 
personally see this as a major issue, and indeed, I can appreciate the 
arguments for the approach taken...

In the end, I think it's a bit of a non-issue, eventually a prefs 
window will be the best solution for settings requiring anything more 
than a toggle (although I have to concur that I found the colour 
settings slightly dubious, in that not having a preference window seems 
to remove the ability to have cross-file defaults, that can be 
over-ridden on a per-file basis... Ah, nothing like equivocating! ; )

...I guess every new release has to have its controversial elements, al 
a OmniWeb's tabs! TM's been christened with its first subjective 
bugbear...!  : )

marc