Xiaofan wrote regarding 'Re: [OT] Top-posting, is it really that bad?' on Fri, Nov 25 at 17:19: > On 11/26/05, Olin Lathrop wrote: > > You're settings aren't right. For one thing you're not getting > > the leading "> " on each line of replied-to text. I'm using > > Outlook Express on Windows XP right now, and here are all my > > settings that I think might be relevant: [... instructions ...] > > Why do yo think Microsoft make this so difficult? They are stupid? > No, I do not think so. Microsoft is very good at UI design and one > of the best in human engineering: I like their mouse as well. They're the best in interface design, but they intentionally made it difficult to make their email program behave like a large number of people would prefer? Hmm, one of these things doesn't make sense. A good UI design doesn't make simple tasks difficult, and one thing that should definitely be simple in an email program is choosing the preferred format to send and the preferred format in which to receive, when there's a choice. The author of mutt said it best when he said "all mail clients suck, this one just sucks less". :) Every mail program has some irritating behavior. One of Outlook's irritating features is that its configuration interface is both overly complex and excessively limiting. That's bad UI, and was probably only allowed out the door because Outlook is supposed to be used in corporate environments with an Exchange back end and dedicated sysadmins confirugint the program. End users aren't supposed to ever see most of the Outlook config stuff. So, fixing a bad UI would have cost money that MS probably deemed to be a waste. "Let's just add semi-transparent drop shadows and new icons instead! People will see the shiny, pretty new program and not care that it's a royal pain to configure!" The MS mouse originally looked just like every other 2-button mouse, but they eventually fixed that shortcoming. I've got a terrible Microsoft serial mouse in my basement right now, in fact. It's shaped kind of like a house (being an "MS Home product", that makes sense, until one realizes that it's a *mouse* and not a model residence). --Danny -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist