Pete's Log: bugs that bug me (Vol I)

Entry #1528, (Coding, Hacking, & CS stuff)
(posted when I was 29 years old.)

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to fixing the postpone feature, meaning I can finally postpone entries again as well as continue previously postponed ones. So I may wind up posting some entries I postponed years ago. But I've also been using the postpone feature to periodically track software issues I find annoying. None of the ones I've listed so far are really bugs. They're more just questionable design decisions.

In VMware (at least in Workstation and Server Console) the key combination Ctrl-Z suspends the virtual machine. Now I may be in the minority, but Ctrl-Z is a key combo I use somewhat frequently. And if, for whatever reason, the focus is not inside the VM, but still on the VMware app, then accidentally suspending a VM is quite easy to do. Bad VMware. Bad.

Lotus Notes, in my humble opinion, is a user interface disaster. One thing I find particularly annoying is that as you move the mouse over menu choices, the window title changes to show more info on what that menu option does. This is incredibly distracting, because not only do you see the window title change on the window, you also see it change in the Windows task bar. Besides, there's a perfectly standard place to show the extra help text: the window's status bar.

Acrobat Reader -- at least the German version -- is a bit too verbose in its context menu. The copy option isn't labeled "Kopieren" as it is in just about every other application, but instead is labeled "In Zwischenablage kopieren," which means "Copy to Clipboard." Maybe this isn't a big deal in the English language version, because the phrase still starts with "Copy." But because I'm looking for the word "kopieren," it always takes me a second or two longer to find the copy command in Acrobat Reader's context menu. And honestly, where the hell else am I going to copy to, if not the clipboard?

The Microsoft Office Clipboard feature drives me crazy.

By coincidence, I've only ever been hired by companies that spell their name with an initial lower-case letter. netViz and amasol. Now you can argue the pros and cons of such branding as much as you want. I just wish there was a way to teach the Office grammar checker that those words should never be capitalized.

OK. So no major bugs. Mainly just poor UI decisions. Let's see how the next issue turns out. :)