difficult e-mail?

[Rich Littleton]

Ken,

You're right that Pine does a lot.  I thought Freeport e-mail was neat
also.  But then, I still use WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.  I also have an
emotional attacment to the (whatever you call it) e-mails SCN uses.

But, you were also correct in concedeing that SCN e-mail is not easy
compared to other options.

However, I can accept a more difficult system if it's free AND IF IT IS
TAUGHT WELL TO ITS USERS.  I'm actively involved in teaching SCN e-mail
and know it is not adequately taught, mostely because it we need ca. 10
times the numnber of vols.  We also need more emphasis from SCN (help
menus, updated ciricullum, basic and intermediate classes, etc. etc.).

We do need to avoid the mentality:  "It's what we got so it is good
enough."

Later,

Rich

______________________________________________________________________

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On Mon, 14 Sep 1998, Kenneth Applegate wrote:

> On Mon, 14 Sep 1998, John Johnson wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> > 
> > As to the main point of the issue:  Pine was designed, and is generally
> > deemed to be, as "friendly" as possible.  Of course, there is an inherent
> > contradiction here:  "friendly" is often expected to be both powerful
> > (lots of choices) and simple (few choices).  And _any_ system that one is
> > familiar with tends to seem friendlier than any other system.  But
> > allowing for all that, I don't think you can point to any other e-mail
> > program that is more "friendly" than Pine.  (Can you?)
> > 
> > === JJ =================================================================
> > 
> 
> Well, that all depends on how you define friendly. If the point-and-click
> paradigm [ah I love that buzzword!] of Windows programs is the measure of
> friendly, then no, Pine ain't very friendly.
> 
> However, if we allow that a text-and-keyboard program can be designed to
> be easily accessible, I think Pine is pretty good. It gives you a couple
> of lines of menu bar at the bottm of the screen with a concise list of the
> most useful commands for each screen context (main menu, folder list,
> index, and editing). If you need more help, there is a clearly labelled
> command right at the beginning of the menus. And, that in turn brings up a
> concise screen showing all the available commands for that context,
> followed by details for those who want them.
> 
> Now, is that intuitively obvious? Probably not. it took me a little bit of
> practice to get used to Pine. On the other hand, because all the commands
> were listed in an accessible way, it also didn't have a very steep
> learning curve. It DOES require that you take time to read a few things,
> and I have the feeling that the Windows point-and-click mentality makes
> people impatient of anything that requires reading more than one or two
> words on a button label! 
> 
> My next question - is a point-and-click Windows style interface in an
> email program intuitively obvious? Also probably not. One of my colleagues
> at work set up Eudora, and I took time one day to play with it. And my
> initial response to THAT interface was "Huh? How do I find anthing among
> all these silly pull-down menus and options?" "How do I do something
> simple like send a damn email message?". Of course, the solution to such
> confusion is almost always RTFM. Which, as a last resort, is reading the
> paper manuals, if they exist. Or clicking through the rather ponderous
> Windows help system and hoping the authors of the program have indexed
> topics in the same way you think is logical. Or - in the case of Pine,
> having the help right there at the bottom of the screen or one keystroke
> away.
> 
> I think there is a place for both approaches here. NO program or user
> interface is perfect, and they all take a little bit of work to learn.
> 
> Ken
> Ken Applegate           How do you identify astronomers from Seattle? 
> <starsrus at scn.org>      By the windshield wipers on their telescopes!
> 
> 

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