[MPlayer-users] Re: annoying error-message

[Michael Loose]

Nada. "windooze-like" is the style of providing large amounts 
of letters (without being asked) containing almost no information about
the actual problem
and providing solutions for problems that might have occured (but
ususally it's not the case) in a way that makes it hard to ignore 
the nasty bull (i.e., locking up the GUI till you prompt the message)
. 

And (of course.. :-) ) no simple way to turn of the bull if you just
don't want to see it anymore. 

Just to point it out : 

1. I do not complain about errors (i was fine with mplayer till the 
error-window showed up)

2. I do not complain about that the error message is wrong and therefore
the solutions would't work (no error, no solution)

3. I do complain about the dictatorship of this message.

And... to be honest : On a more abstract level the "Windowism" consists
in the evident, but unspoken conscience of the unusability  of a piece
of software
(MPlayer is an excellent piece of software, no doubt. Compiled it on a
G4 running YDL yesterday and i like it's output and style more
than e.g. Apple's DVD-Player), so there is a need to permanently explain
to the user what *could* go wrong right now to prevent him/her from
getting fed up and use a different app - with the effect that 
the user get's totally fed up with the applications default behaviour
(think of MS-Office..).
 
>From my view the thing with mplayer is : It's the best mediaplayer i
know so far - but at the same time in some belongs it's pretty unusuable
for less advanced users,
and lacks of integration into the Desktop/GUI, just compared to e.g.
VLC-client. I know many OSX-Users who'd love it, but keep on using VLC
because of "double-click, see the icon, feel fine".

 





On Fri, 2003-06-27 at 12:38, Jonathan Rogers wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> Michael Loose wrote:
> > That's a suitable windooze-like solution ;-)...
> > 
> > On Fri, 2003-06-27 at 09:31, Jonathan Rogers wrote:
> > 
> >>[Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> >>Michael Loose wrote:
> >>
> >>>[Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> >>>Is there any possibility to turn of this  totally annoying, f...
> >>>windooze-like error-message (it even locks the interface) telling me
> >>>something about my computer being too slow and providing some smart
> >>>suggestions for problems i weren't yet aware of?
> >>
> >>I just stopped using the GUI and realized I had never needed it anyway.
> 
> What's "windooze-like?" Are you talking about the popup message box or 
> the terminal app? Most Windooze programs require the GUI, which I think 
> is especially dumb for a movie player. Actually, I think the ideal is a 
> minimal GUI for things like seek bars. However, it's more important to 
> have all functions available from the keyboard.
> 
> Jonathan Rogers
> 
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