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The Semantic Line Interface

Posted by Unknown on from the do-what-i-mean-not-what-i-click dept.

First time accepted submitter yuriyg_ua writes "[The] semantic line interface may combine features of both command line and graphical interface, which would allow even more complex applications than we have seen before." The idea is that the layer underlying user interfaces should define the semantic relations between data enabling the UI to provide better contextual information. Kind of a modern version of the CLIM presentation system.

2 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. How did this shit get on the front page? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So a guy submits an link to his own blog page featuring a long and dreary essay containing some half-baked ill-defined vague handwavey idea about some kind of "semantic" interface which seems to have no new basis beyond what google's autocomplete or win7's search functions already do, and it gets posted to the front page? If you're going to allow self-publicity like this, it should at least be for good articles rather than shit ones.

  2. Real problem. Bad solution. by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The article cited offers a crap solution, but there is a problem. It's the "What menu is that in?" problem. This is a real issue with some programs, especially the ones with modal and/or context sensitive toolbars and menus. It's really annoying when you read the manual, it tells you to use the "join" menu item, you can't find the "join" menu item, and the manual doesn't tell you under what circumstances the "join" menu item will be available.

    The original Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines insisted that menu items should be greyed out when inapplicable, but they shouldn't disappear. Many GUIs today either make them disappear, or leave them looking normal but inoperative. The right solution today is probably to grey them out, but bring up a tooltip that explains what's needed to make that function usable.

    (My current hatred in user interface design is invisible buttons, ones that only appear when moused over. Facebook is notorious for this. Many users don't know that if you hover over an ad, you get the option to make that advertiser go away.)