Tim Boudreau's Blog: September 2004 Archive

Posted by timboudreau on September 08, 2004 at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I just committed some changes to NetBeans key bindings handling, so that mac users will get key bindings that are much more like other mac apps (no change for Windows or Linux users).

Specifically what's different:

Ctrl -> Command - everything that normally maps to Ctrl will use the Command key instead, except where that's impossible (Command-H always hides the app, Command-Q always quits, Command-~ always changes windows, that sort of thing)
Command-G maps to Find-Next
Command-R maps to Replace (Ctrl-H, the windows key binding, works as well)
Cursor control keys in the editor are the default mac ones - Option-Left-arrow to skip to next word, etc. (Option==Alt)

Also, dialog buttons will now appear in the correct order on Macs, with OK on the right.

Alas, these changes will not be in NetBeans 4.0 Beta 2 - I missed the cut-off, but it's better to review things properly than to rush. They will be in Beta 3.

Please give it a try, and let me know if any of your habitual keystrokes are doing the wrong thing. You can download tonight's build here. Be sure to select "Daily" from the "Build Type" drop-down.

The build with these changes will become available just after 4PM PST, or 1AM GMT.

Have you hugged your Jini developer lately?

Posted by timboudreau on September 01, 2004 at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's always tempting to write software to be intelligent - it makes us look intelligent! And if you can do it well, you can make a lot of money. But in intelligent software, there are hidden perversities - sometimes it's going to make assumptions that are wrong, either hilariously or disasterously, and the probability of that goes up with the complexity of the software. People are intelligent, and they're wrong sometimes too.

It's quite easy to screw up simple things - when I moved to Prague in 1999, my bank sent all of my statements to "Czechoslovak, Iowa" (get it - Czechoslovak-I-A :-). So it's even easier to screw up complex things.

Google is all about intelligence in software - search algorithms are hard. Recently I've been seeing Ads By Google on the web. Looking up what Google says it is, I learn "It means that Google uses search-based technologies to match advertisements to the content and context of web pages"

The other day I was browsing a web site devoted to Jini, and saw this:

(translations of the German at the bottom are welcome)
Now Google's software is quite intelligent. This could be the first indication of a serious mental health crisis among Jini developers. It would be irresponsible not to take it seriously.

If you know a Jini developer, give 'em a call. Give 'em a hug. Tell 'em everything will be all right.

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