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Old 06-09-2007, 05:25 AM   #49
HarryT
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alex_d View Post
Yet the real issue is entirely orthogonal to that. Presenting the possible options, organizing them elegantly, and offering graphical and textual hints to what the choices do is the correct way to present an interface (now that our displays and memory aren't ridiculously limited.)
That's exactly what I said earlier - that in a GUI application you can have all the possible things that it's valid to do at that point nicely presented to you in (for example) a menu or a a dialog box, rather than having to learn a cryptic command for each one.

Eg, in a word processor, the toolbar gives you instant visual feedback on the most common things it's possible to do to text - make it bold, italic, underline, etc. For the less commonly used options, I can go to the "Format" menu and immediately see in front of me a list of all the formatting operations I might want to do at that point.

The primary advantage of a GUI such as Windows (or the Mac, or any other GUI interface) is the fact that every (properly written) application presents a consistent interface to the user. Learn how to open a file once in Windows, and you know how to open a file in every application. Learn how to make text "bold" once, and you know how to do it in every application in which it's a valid operation.
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