Now that common people are becoming more familiar with computing the computer userbase is gradually pushed back to using text input (in contrast to “point & click” interface popularized by earlier versions of Windows and suchlike)

The first major “text promoter” was undoubtedly Google featuring the most simplistic commercial web page Internet community had ever seen, with only one field for text input and no other prominent screen objects. To emphasize the textual nature of the service (and the texting involvement of users) they even have put a piece of JavaScript to move browser’s input focus to that renowned field upon page load, so that user doesn’t have to click in anything to start using that service.

Google came after Yahoo’s web directory where main usage pattern was to scroll through lists of predefined categories and subcategories with no text input but with lots of links to click on.

The peak of Yahoo’s glory coincided with that of Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98 and 2000. No wonder they all were promoting similar values: users don’t have to be very smart to use their products, they even are allowed to be illiterate because the only task they were faced with were to choose from a list of choices - just like the simple tests in American colleges.

But here comes Web 2.0.

In context of this writing Web 2.0 means among other things that many of the users (or consumers) become also the authors (or content producers)
This implies they have to actually write texts. Sometimes those “texts” may be very short, a classic example being the search term or query string input in the search engine start page. But anyway this is a trend.

The new Windows Vista just coundn’t leave this all aside.
Take a look at the Windows Vista Features Page. We don’t expect to see the comprehensive list of features here, only the most important ones as seen by Microsoft Corp. This is a promotional website after all. Yet among these few things we see the whole two features involving text input!

Can you recall anything “text” in all the previous Windows promos?

Now don’t tell me UNIX is unfriendly just because it is text based mainly. The operating systems giant confirmes text interface is the future of personal computing. Whether it is input with a keyboard or with voice recognition modules or from handwriting recognized.

The next version of Windows will hopefully include a built-in bash-like shell with it’s excellent history and line editing capabilities to finally set users free from mouse-related hand injuries.



Categories: UNIX & Computing.
Published on Friday, October 13th, 2006
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