| Date: | August 22, 2007 / year-entry #309 |
| Tags: | tipssupport |
| Orig Link: | https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20070822-00/?p=25473 |
| Comments: | 63 |
| Summary: | As we saw when we discussed context menus, holding down the shift key when opening a context menu adds so-called extended verbs to the menu. These are verbs that are less frequently used whose presence would clutter up the menu or pose an attractive nuisance. For example, the "Command Prompt Here" command is an extended... |
As we saw when we discussed context menus, holding down the shift key when opening a context menu adds so-called extended verbs to the menu. These are verbs that are less frequently used whose presence would clutter up the menu or pose an attractive nuisance. For example, the "Command Prompt Here" command is an extended command since your typical non-technical user has no use for it,¹ and selecting it creates a baffling command prompt that screams "You are not smart enough to use this computer! Return it to the store and get a Mac instead!" In reaction to this, one person wrote, "I've not seen anyone even attempt to justify why this should be hidden like this. Shift+RightClick is not a standard move so no one is going to find this by accident." And indeed, that's precisely why it's hidden²—so that nobody finds it by accident! The only³ people that find it are the people who are smart enough to go looking for it. Nitpicker's Corner ¹Although this statement is written as if it were a fact, all facts presented here are really just my personal interpretation of the world. That interpretation is not the official position of Microsoft Corporation, and it may ultimately prove incorrect. ²The use of the word "precisely" here is rhetorical, emphasizing that the argument against hiding them works equally well as an argument for hiding them. The statement is not an establishment of the official Microsoft position on why the menu items are on the extended menu. It is merely my interpretation of the situation. ³The use of the term "only" here is not meant in an absolute sense, as if there were some physical barrier preventing people from using it inadvertently. It is possible that somebody might hold the shift key by mistake when calling up the context menu, in which case my statement that "The only people that find it are the people who are smart enough to go looking for it" becomes incorrect. |
Comments (63)
Comments are closed. |
The only thing that confuses me about this feature is that on Windows XP, shift-right-clicking a random file (in this case a .chm file) only gives me one extra option ("Pin to start menu") which I wouldn’t exactly consider a power user option. So I’m not sure why the feature is useful on XP.
As I recall, under Win2K the "Open with…" option required shift to be held (which I can vaguely understand), but that is on the main menu in XP.
I use command prompt here all the time, I just hope I can make it non hidden (Not really moved to Vista yet, not sure if its just a Extended value in the registry or if its a "real" shell exstension) I’d hate to clutter up the shift menu with two equal items if I end up adding my own
I think MS wasted money on developing this feature. The intersection of people who would use it and the people who will find out about it has to be small.
The point that disappointed me in your example is the fact that the "open command window here" is only displayed when right clicking a folder in the right pane of the explorer. The left "folders" pane doesn’t seems to know anything about extended options.
Strange, isn’t it ?
Just once, I want to alt-leftshift-rightclick on the my computer icon with caps lock on, and have it say "dude, get a life."
@Raymond:
Apparently I have a lot to learn about context menus.
That nitpicker’s corner … maybe you could post it in a smaller font, or make a generic "nitpicker’s corner" post and then link it from all the places where you wanna refer to it? Since all the nitpicking there is really is "this is not official Microsoft position", in various ways and forms, although I have to admit that you do write them in a tongue-in-cheek way that makes them a little more bearable ;)
Man, I hope you have as much fun writing the Nitpicker’s Corner as I do reading it.
In Windows XP I could drag-drop a file/folder to a command prompt window and get the path of that file/folder entered for me. This is not possible in Vista, and I have to shift+right click on the file/folder and choose "copy as path". This is really annoying.
Nitpicker’s Corner seems to be rapidly overtaking the main blog entry as the best part of the entry.
But I digress… What many people are saying is that, once the best possible context menu has been settled upon, MSFT should do nothing else to enhance that menu.
When you think about it, who cares if MSFT makes Shift-RightClick add some new options… even if the point of those options are just to make life easier for MSFT developers? It doesn’t hurt anybody, because if the feature were not implemented, then the main context menu would remain precisely the same.
Actually the Nitpicker’s Corner is getting quite annoying, in my opinion at least.
I agree with the poster that suggested a single Nitpicker’s Corner thread with respective numbers that you can link to in each posting, adding new "disclaimers" as necessary and assigning a new unused number to each disclaimer.
Too bad you can’t make a click-through EULA in order to read each post :)
I think it’s a sad day when the nitpicker’s corner becomes as big as Raymond’s article.
I can start understanding why you’re writing books instead of blog articles.
I agree with Stuart Ballard. I really would have liked to know about such options without having to randomly stumble upon them on an Internet weblog. I don’t know what this has to do with "being smart", either. Whatever happened to the concept of product documentation?
If you are smart enough to press and hold the fire button while double-clicking My Documents, Windows will prepare an ISO image with all files and folders for burning.
"The only³ people that find it are the people who are smart enough to go looking for it."
Don’t you see how dumb this thinking is now? But "smart" is a subjective term after all..
The people finding the Nitpicker’s Corner section annoying are obviously the same people trying to nitpick Raymond’s posts – only those kinds of people would be incapable of NOT READING a block of text they think will annoy them…
Forgot to say… if shift+rightclick were some completely new and obscure idea that hadn’t been around for, say, 5+ years already… then i might agree that this is TOO obscure and people won’t find it even if they would get good use out of it – as Stuart Ballard pointed out.
However, since shift+right-click has done something to modify the context menu since (at least) Windows 2000… then most of us already know that its a potential place to look if you’re trying to seek out a command. One of the first things I did during the betas of Vista was to shift+rightclick and see if they had added any new useful stuff. I seriously doubt I’m alone.
It looks like more and more comments are about the Nitpicker’s Corner and not about the article. It is kind of normal, when the length of the article is the same as the one of the corner :-)
But I would like to address another problem with the corner. It illustrates a very bad programming practice: "programming with copy/paste"
As all programmers should know by now, when the same section of code repeats again and again, you should move it into a function.
(This comment is not intended as nitpicking, just a small attempt at fun. If it does not sound fun to you, then sorry.)
What I find sad is people not finding the nitpicker’s corner funny. People who don’t enjoy it seem to think that the blog is written especially for them and thus the corner applies to them.
For them, here’s an idea: you know what will be in there, so why not skip reading it?
The amusing / sad part is that by complaining about it, they reinforce its need. Don’t you see it?
Anyone want to take bets as to how long it’ll be before Raymond starts posting disclaimers that are a page long?
How is somebody supposed to go looking for an option like this? Who in their right mind is going to search for ‘extended content menu’? Why would anyone assume that a shift right-click in certain contexts is a reasonable thing to try, and why would they spend their time doing it on the off chance they happened across something neat?
The more reasonable option would be to have a control panel with the option to turn these on all the time. That would be a great place to find the documentation indicating they can be accessed with a shift-click as well.
Advanced users tend to go clicking around through options to familiarize themselves with what is outthere. Hiding useful features behind magic keystrokes is just silly, if you ask me.
I love the nitpicker’s corner, but it has gotten to the point where all the comments are about the nitpicker’s corner instead of the article. At least before the nitpicker’s corner the comments were mostly on-topic (even the ones nitpicking things); now all we do is discuss the nitpicker’s corner. Pretty soon the nitpicker’s corner will need its own nitpicker’s corner to handle the nitpickers nitpicking the original nitpicker’s corner. Maybe Raymond should just quit Microsoft and write a book about nitpickers. At this rate he’ll have to be institutionalized; every waking moment he will be muttering something about nitpickers to himself.
How many nits would a nitpicker pick if a nitpicker could pick nits?
<blockquote>
Raymond writes: If people stopped nitpicking and treating what I write as the official position of Microsoft Corporation, then I’ll stop with the nitpicker’s corner
</blockquote>
If it’s not working, why bother? I think this is exactly why it’s patronizing. The people who understand how to contextualize information they read in a weblog don’t need it and it’s not going to make a difference to the people who are annoying you. If you enjoy writing it, then say so. But it seems to me that it’s something that you are doing because of other people and it just seems silly. Maybe you could only have the corner exposed with a Shift-rightClick?
<blockquote>
Pierre writes: here’s an idea: you know what will be in there, so why not skip reading it?
</blockquote>
Old habit I guess. the footnotes used to have lots of interesting trivia in them.
Shift+Right-Click just becomes part of Windows lore like Ctrl+Numpad Plus, Shift+No = No To All, Alt+Hyphen, multi-selecting taskbar buttons, etc… the knowledge will spread with time to those who might care about it.
So the people who might be able to use the feature won’t know it’s there, and someone’s grandmother is going to accidentally do it and not understand what the heck happened. Computers just keep getting easier and easier to use.
Raymond,
Long time reader of your blog, and a big fan of what you have to say. I don’t read comments [YOU say valuable things. Your readers… maybe not], so I appologize if this point has been made.
I’ll be straight forward with you- Ever since someone cited you in their white paper, your writing has sounded whiney and even egotistical.
The writer of the white paper cited several other blogs for further reading as well- In my mind, this says that the writer of the white paper was unprofessional, and informal. Anyone can see this, and few people will take HIM seriously as the "end-all-be-all MS authority", either.
To constantly denounce yourself as an official voice of Microsoft, you’re constantly highlighting the fact that lots of people read this blog, and find it very important. "Hey, don’t be fooled! Other people think that this is ALMOST as important as if Steve B himself said it- Not quite, but close enough that people have confused it!"
Anyone who’s been online for more than 2 weeks will understand that this is your personal blog. It’s on blogs.msdn.com. Remember your post about overly-long signatures on email? You’ve got overly-long disclaimers on your musings. You’re overcompensating for the paltry portion of readers who might be mentally diminished, and it honestly feels like it’s one. big. pat on your own back.
I hate to be brutally honest with you, Raymond, but frankly, I need to say something. As "just another reader", I’m sure I don’t matter to someone who seems to consider himself so important, but I’m very close to removing you from my RSS aggregator.
Take the ego out of the posts.
@ Lee B
I have to agree. Lately the postings seem to be showing a bit of ego and I am glad that you pointed it out.
Yes, I know the nitpicker’s corner is meant to
be funny but a joke stops being funny after it is repeated a few times.
This has been repeated emough times so I hope RC give it a rest.
This shift+right-click concept is actually in the same category as the "edit the registry" approach Microsoft uses to change how some programs behave (I love to use Exchange as an example here). Why do they do that? Obviously because it’s such a "special" setting and only intended for smart people, and only smart people are dumb enough to mess with the registry.
What is probably closer to the fact is that it’s much cheaper to do it that way, because it’s less code, less time spent developing a UI, figuring out where to place it, less to explain (click here, then there, and here, and over there, remember to press and hold fire while pressing apply or OK, or it won’t save your settings, this is a safeguard in case dumb people would try to change it).
"If you are smart enough to press and hold the fire button while double-clicking My Documents, Windows will prepare an ISO image with all files and folders for burning."
Whoa there, skippy. What made you think that you could extrapolate the justification for context menu shift-right-click to other features? Just because it was a fine idea for one context menu doesn’t mean it’s an OK idea for everything.
Isn’t that obvious? (i.e., I can’t believe I had to write that)
"If you are smart enough to press and hold the fire button while double-clicking My Documents, Windows will prepare an ISO image with all files and folders for burning."
Whoa there, skippy. What made you think that you could extrapolate the justification for context menu shift-right-click to other features? Just because it was a fine idea for one context menu doesn’t mean it’s an OK idea for everything.
Isn’t that obvious? (i.e., I can’t believe I had to write that)
Ahahaha every day the footnotes get better!
"Why would anyone assume that a shift right-click in certain contexts is a reasonable thing to try…"
As Tim pointed out, Shift-RtClick has been around for 5+ years. Have you never Shift-RtClick in WinXP to Run As User?
Oh, wait, I forgot everybody runs as Admin. :=)
"why would they spend their time doing it on the off chance they happened across something neat? … Advanced users tend to go clicking around through options to familiarize themselves with what is outthere."
You’ve answered your own question. Don’t just click around, press the shift key every once in a while.
My pet peeve: it looks like the Folders pane in Vista got short changed in the QA department. In Win2000 and WinXP, right-clicking on a folder in either the Folders pane or list view presents the same menu. Not so in Vista; some options, such as Copy As Path, do not show up on the context menu of a Folders pane item (no matter what keys are held down)
In addition, under Vista, Alt-Enter will bring up the properties of an item in the list view, but Alt-Enter does nothing for an item in the Folder pane (even though the context menu has a Properties item in both cases)
In Win2000 and WinXP, Alt-Enter always opens the properties page, in either the listview or Folders pane.
Somehow I don’t think MS will fix these. :=(
"The only³ people that find it are the people who are smart enough to go looking for it."
Am I the only one to have read that as
"The only 3 people that find it are the people who are smart enough to go looking for it."
(ie, the ‘3’ as a part of the sentence)
It amused me for a moment or two. Simple minds and all that.
"What I find sad is people not finding the nitpicker’s corner funny." – Pierre B
Jokes get old. What was once funny becomes less so when repeated every day.
I’ve been using Vista on my primary machine for three months, and I didn’t know about this. This is pretty slick.
Is there a way to *always* show the extended options?
It could be done by going through the registry and removing all of the “extended” values, but that seems messy, and hard to undo. Is there one global setting to enable it?
I understand this logic, but I still disagree with it.
I am, emphatically, the kind of user who would get use out of all these sorts of extended options. "Command prompt here" would be damn useful if I knew about it.
But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the way I generally find out about things *isn’t* by reading through the documentation (or even blogs) looking for tips about obscure options, or by randomly holding down modifier keys while performing random actions. It’s by exploring the interface that’s there and looking for cues.
It’s not impossible to make something hard to find by accident but still discoverable by a power user who’s actively exploring the interface trying to find obscure options. It takes a little more thought on the part of the interface designer, but making it *completely* undiscoverable like this seems like a cop out.
<i>[You already know the answer to this question. -Raymond]</i>
After reading that post (Which I hadn’t read before), it appears the same verb can exist in both standard and extended menus with different actions…. such as “Delete” skipping the recycle bin.
So, even if I *could* change a global setting, I wouldn’t want to.
Am I reading that right?
Thomas B:
That’s the thing that drives me slightly crazy about the Shift-RightClick options, they’re not consistent! Doesn’t it take more effort to *not* display the extended options in one scenario over another?
I ended up just adding a new shell item for folders in the registry to launch the command window…quick and dirty, but it works and now I’m less driven-crazy in the course of the day.
@Stuart Ballard: But apparently, you do read blog postings and other tips on the Internet. Perhaps you’ll find out about the feature that way! So it must not be "*completely*" undiscoverable.
"Jokes get old. What was once funny becomes less so when repeated every day."
Why is it a joke? You interpret it that way. Perhaps if he repeats it everyday it will actually get old enough where nitpickers will stop and just get the spirit of the posting without taking it as a challenge to pick it apart. Doubtful.
At least at that point everyone will complain about the existance of the nitpickers corner instead of just nitpicking the article.
The Nitpicker’s corner is approaching the length of the article! Give it a rest already. I find it really patronizing and I suspect many other readers do as well*
Nitpicker’s Corner
* When I say “I suspect many other readers do as well” it doesn’t mean I conducted a formal survey of the readers of your weblog. Nor does it mean I even spoke with another reader, but just relied on the inference that, if they find your weblog interesting, they are probably intelligent enough to understand human discourse, despite being programmers**.
** This statement was not intended to imply that programmers are not human, but merely making a potentially humorous reference to the well-know stereotype that programmer’s are inept at social interaction.***
*** Though I made this comment on a Microsoft sponsored weblog, I do not mean to imply that Microsoft programmers are more or less inept at social interaction than programmers in general.
[Why do they do that? Obviously because it’s such a "special" setting and only intended for smart people, and only smart people are dumb enough to mess with the registry.]
The funny thing is that soon some ‘advanced’ dude will transfer that knowledge to somebody ‘not-so-advanced’, and through gossip lot’s of people will know that something "cool" happens by editing the registry so-and-so.
But people who are not so very skilled with computers, and in particular computers running Microsoft Windows, they may still be very curious. And hearing that something cool is available can easily trigger that curiosity. With the result that something bad happens to the registry ("oops, my computer shows a blue screen while restarting it and I just got it yesterday!!"). Of course, Microsoft Corporation has put up lot’s of disclaimers and stuff like that, but how many reads that? Especially when you just follow some very simplified guidelines from a forum. For some reason many people prefer asking lot’s and lot’s of questions on forums, or some computer-skilled friend, instead of reading a technical article such as the product documentation or MSKB.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a good way to design GUIs properly for this yet. What about labeling a version of Windows with most advanced stuff turned on in a way which will scare of most non-technical computers? For example "Windows Vista for Geeks who need to get laid". I’ve read "Why doesn’t Windows have an expert mode?" http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/07/28/54583.aspx and find it to be very true. But perhaps a separate product edition with a scary name will scare of people who shouldn’t get it in the first place? Perhaps with some quizzes in the beginning, and if you fail too many of them downgrade to "Windows Vista Home"?
Wish I could work as "Windows product edition labelling" dude for one day :-)
Since nitpickers corner is trying to cover everything, it makes me wonder about things it doesn’t say. For instance, is it Microsoft’s official position that people who don’t go looking for "Command Prompt Here" are not particularly smart?
One of my pet peeves regarding the default context menus is the dreaded Print command.
I really wonder why would I want to send my 300+ MB .log file to a printer, and without even asking any confirmation!
The Microsoft XPS Document Writer virtual printer that I’ve set as default has saved me numerous times :)
I appreciate the dilemma of providing features that are useful for many users but unsafe for the childish and inattentive. I feel your pain – it is impossible to be all things to all people. But utter disaffordance is just evil*.
I would much prefer an "advanced" item at the end of the list. Yes, an extra mouse click! When selected, it would first display a warning dialog giving the clear impression of bad karma ahead. There would be a "do not show this warning again" checkbox which, when enabled, further offers the option to "always include advanced items on the main list." A thusly enabled extended list would have an item at the end to turn off extended lists.
Yes, this is kind of elaborate. The point is to use unattractive nuisance as a compromise between idiot-proof-by-invisibility and transparent affordance.
By the way, I enjoy the daily nitpicnic. I hope my occasional opinionated comments and pointless wisecracks have not abused your hospitality.
* This apparent statement of opinion is actually a metaphysical verity. Any official position to the contrary is heretical fallacy.
Now, that I like…
While I understand the reasons for it, I still disagree with the idea of protecting the novice at the expense of the expert.
The argument goes that the expert has the knowledge to get to what they need, but that misses the point. Certainly, I *could* spend time hunting and researching for the magic buttons, much as I *could* spend time sharpening blunted scissors made for school children…
…But I’d rather just buy with tools designed with an adult in mind.
At any rate, depending on advanced users to whittle away countless hours studying the OS for "power user features" seems like more of a crutch than a good argument. Time is valuable and ‘discovering’ these things takes a lot of it, assuming one even knows there’s something to discover. The bar to accessing these advanced features really needs to be much lower than it is.
Please consider finding some other way of indicating that your blog is not the official word from on high at Microsoft. By making it a footnote in every post (twice in this one), you put your regular readers in the position of having to read the same essential message over and over, which eventually leads to a certain amount of frustration. We get it. Maybe you could subtitle the blog “Not actually an official statement from Microsoft in any way, shape or form”. Or “Not actually a formal statement of Microsoft policy or position”. Or “Not actually to be taken internally”. The last one sort of misses the point, but it’s late. I’m tired.
I had been using "Run as" since 2000 via shift right click… However I find that the "Run as" no longer work as expected on my Vista with UAC being disabled? My domain account is a local admin and occasionally want to run some mmc consoles as domain admin, any clue?
There’s always the possibility that you just filter the morons. The only people who are really going to get riled about improving the signal-to-noise ratio are those who are making mostly noise and those who disapprove of any sort of comment moderation. Neither are really your audience.
“One of my pet peeves regarding the default context menus is the dreaded Print command.”
I have a similar one (though not really MS’s fault) where “Scan With XYZ” is directly above “Open With”. In fact they are the only two options between those particular dividers which I find odd, but that’s a digression. So many times I’ve clicked to scan a file instead of open it with a different program. Not a problem on my new machine, but for large files on my old one (with XP randomly disabling DMA whenever it felt like it) it could take an absolute age with no real way of stopping it.
Loving the idea of the click-through EULA for each post…
> I hate the nitpicker’s corner as much as you do. Blame the people who
> insist that I really am an official spokesperson…
The problem is, how do you know the disclaimer is working? It’s a bit specious to just say "nobody takes my remarks out of context now that I have my disclaimer in place"*.
For the time being, I’ve just been ignoring the nitpicker’s corner. But it’s hard, because I like to read the comments and while it’s easy enough to skip the nitpicker’s corner in the actual post, I can’t do the same with *comments* about the nitpicker’s corner.
Why don’t we leave the nitpicker’s corner in place, and simply delete all references to it in the comments? That’ll make *me* happy, and after all, isn’t that the most important thing?
* And if people still take remarks out of context even *with* a disclaimer, then you’ve got to wonder what the point is. After all: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/04/13/2106139.aspx
Raymond, suggestion:
s/not actually a .NET blog/not actually official Microsoft gospel and if you are dumb enough to actually think so, please go away — also, if you feel you need to determine for me what is acceptable and/or funny, please go outside and take a deep breath… thank you.
If it fits, of course.
Sjoerd Verweij:
Usage: [line [,line]] s [[/;]RE[/;]repl[/;] [cgr] [count] [#lp]].
(You need to escape the slash in "and/or".)
Maybe if you wrote under a pseudonym, it would avoid the problem of people taking you as an official Microsoft spokesperson?
Raymond,
I live on the second floor and in my building there is a grill. Recently they installed new ventilation system which rezonates through the whole building at approximately note G (if you have a guitar, third fret on the sixth string).
I couldn’t sleep for two days, sound is awfully unpleasant and even ear plugs do not help. I even moved the bed around the room in an effort to find a spot where the sound is not so prominent making the mess out of my neat room in the process. In the end I decided to give up and learn to ignore it.
That is exactly what you should do with nitpickers and those who take your posts as an official Microsoft position. Write a disclaimer, put a link to it on each post page in some prominent place and start ignoring the bastards.
"You are not smart enough to use this computer! Return it to the store and get a Mac instead!"
Raymond, you’re the chief geek, but you’ve really got to change that prompt. I recommend using $p$g instead.
:-)
If you hold down the shift key whilst nitpicking, it doesn’t end up in nitpicker’s corner.
Why does clicking* on a folder in the explorer tree result in a different menu compared to clicking* on a folder in the files pane?
Pick a Nit:
* When speaking about clicking I refer to a right click whilst holding the shift key.
Getting the "Open Command Window Here" option in the folder tree is actually quite simple:
Export the key, and delete it.
Edit the exported key, and replace "Directory" with "Folder".
If you want the option to always be available, delete the "Extended"="" line, or change it to "-Extended"="".
Save the file, and re-import it.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershellcmd]
@="@shell32.dll,-8506"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
"Extended"=""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershellcmdcommand]
@="cmd.exe /s /k pushd "%V""
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