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From: sirkm@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Greg Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: UserLevel Stuff
Message-ID: <8657@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Date: 8 Aug 89 16:05:27 GMT
References: <14906@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: sirkm@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Greg Anderson)
Organization: UC Santa Cruz; Division of Social Sciences
Lines: 73

In article <14906@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> sean@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sean P. Nolan) writes:
>Jeeeeeez!
>
>I dislike the Information Nazis as much as the next guy, but let's not go 
>overboard with this unlimited access business.

Unless you're writing stacks that contain classified information (not a good
use for HyperCard), you can't go overboard with "this unlimited access
business."

>Atkinson put the access
>restriction features in for a reason: "I've gone to great lengths to hide some
>of the power in the early stages. It's like prerequisites for courses in
>college. In the same way, I hope that beginners can come into this with the
>idea of, "Well, I can just click to browse around, and I can click and type to
>add cards," and then they can use it right away." etc. etc.

Yes, exactly.  Userlevels below "scripting" should only be used for the
benefit of semi-computer-illiterate or computer-inexperienced users.  If
your STACK changes the userLevel, you are assuming that all of your stack
users are computer-illiterate.

>When you are creating a program/stack for an audience, you have to keep their
>needs/wants/etc. in mind. For example, I'm writing a stack for incoming
>freshmen to use when they first get to school. They'll have just received their
>Macs, and won't know much more than pointing and clicking. So you hide the
>extra power from them until they can use it and "handle" it.

Again, I agree.  But you should hide the extra power by setting the userLevel
to Browsing by clicking on the appropriate radio button in the Home stack.

>Once they have
>a grasp of Hypercard, it's simple enough to hit command-space to show the menu,
>etc. But when they just want to know where to go during Orientation week,
>having the whole menu available would be confusing.

I couldn't disagree more strongly.  The menubar has useful options in it
like "Go Home".  Beginning users should be exposed to things like this.
The menubar is an integral part of the Macintosh user interface.  It is
silly to assume that beginning users will not need to know how to use it.

>The same type of argument
>goes for creating a Purchase Order stack for use by semi-computer-literate
>secretaries at a company, as an example.

Of course--and you can still set the userLevel to browsing in the Home stack.

>The Mac was intended to be a tool for people who weren't "techies" ... it is
>our responsibility as programmers to ensure that it remains that. This creates
>a tension --- "Information Nazism" vs. Program Usefulness. The best resolution
>to the tension seems to be Atkinson's approach of "make it all available, but
>a little at a time." And since we can't expect novice users to accurately
>set the UserLevel according to their own ability OUR PARTICULAR STACK, we must
>introduce that sort of ratcheting up process on our own.
>
>--- Sean
>    Sean_Nolan@Mac.Dartmouth.EDU
>    Hinman Box 2658; Hanover, NH 03755

If you set the userLevel within your stack, you are not making it available
a little bit at a time.  Novices will be happy in browsing mode, but
intermediate users will be annoyed at being unable to get out of it.  More
advanced users will simply set the userLevel to 5 and grumble at you a bit.

In short, it is the purpose of the Home stack to configure HyperCard to
the preferences of the user.  Individual stacks should assume that all
preferences set in the home stack have been set correctly.  Doing so
makes your stack no less useful.

  ___\    /___               Greg Anderson              ___\    /___ 
  \   \  /   /         Social Sciences Computing        \   \  /   /
   \  /\/\  /    University of California, Santa Cruz    \  /\/\  /
    \/    \/              sirkm@ssyx.ucsc.edu             \/    \/