/* d0m1 */

KB cleverness, but ultimately alas, UI INSANITY

Via ISerializable: to access your quick launch entries without using the mouse: hit Windows Key, then Tab. Cool! 90% of apps don't even do KB navigation, at all.

A gripe though: logging into XP's fancy login screen without the mouse is not intuitive. Do-able, but not a pleasant eXPerience, IMO.

OK, for some reason I feel the need to RANT.

Why in god's name does Windows not yet have the "Open Cmd.exe Here" right-click option out of the box? It's only the single most useful poweretoy EVER. In the history of powertoys. Even in an alternate Universe, I can't begin to imagine a powertoy more useful than this one, ....I just can't even begin to understand why this wasn't included as part of XP, or Win2K; the powertoy has been around since NT4 days, right? Grrrrr..... It's NO FUN to have to install the same ESSENTIAL things on every PC that I use. Why can't it just come out of the box? WHY?

Maybe it would "scare" novice users. Hmph. Optionize it to default to OFF then. But include it.

Now this issue, this, well, this is just horrible. It's one of the things that I HATE. It is this: when doing a Restore in Enterprise Manager, the locations for the data and log files default to the locations that they were on the original 'source' machine. H:\MSSQL\DATA, for instance. Of course that path doesn't exist on my target 'restore' machine, 99% of the time. It's something like C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\blah\blah. So I have to fire up Explorer, navigate to the path in question, Alt+D, Ctrl+C, Alt+Tab, Ctrl+V. Ah No! I can't just paste the folder path into EntMan's textbox, because that would be way too easy. No, I have to select just the path portion of the crappy filename, and paste over just that, leaving the filename portion, and hopefully a fully functioning valid fully qualified file. Of course the font in EntMan is Crappy New 2 point, or at least that what it feels like with my eyesight when I'm trying to select just up to the barely visible backslash char FOR THE THOUSANDTH TIME. The UI and User Experience of doing these Restores, is just atrocious. It's shit on a stick. Would it be asking too much for EntMan to validate the target data and log paths and create them as necessary, so that the Restore fn. actually WORKED. That would be nice. Even nicer would be if it detected that the 'source' paths don't exist on the 'target' server, and it prompted the user: "shall I create these paths, or shall I alter them to the default DATA folder on this machine?". With a "Remember my preference checkbox". I don't ask for much... ;)

Little things. But they add up to DEVELOPER INSANITY.

Ok, hopefully I'm going to be able to rejoin civilised society now. I feel a bit better getting that out. But damn, Restores are truly painful.

Thinking about it; the task at hand is: "move this DB from box A to box B". This should be accomplishable with NO MORE THAN 6 MOUSE CLICKS. Select the function (1), select the source server (2), source DB (3), target server (4), target DB (5), OK (6). If the UI persists 2, 3, 4 and 5, then it can be done IN TWO CLICKS. I don't even want to COUNT the # of clicks I have to go through with the current torture that is SQL Server Backup & Restore through Enterprise Manager.

When you're doing LOTS of DB moving in an average day, this kind of stuff is beyond useful, it becomes a must-have....

Hmmm.... this has just gone up in priority on the autoCode dev list.