4 ms·

There's no reason why we couldn't come up with a nice GUI than piped output. I don't think the problem is GUI specifically - the problem is poor/no provision f

There's no reason why we couldn't come up with a nice GUI than piped output. I don't think the problem is GUI specifically - the problem is poor/no provision for automation. Our widely used apps either discourage (by making it difficult), or just do not enable, anything other than manual actions. Take the MS Office suite, for example. The entire suite is built round highly manual operations - the common operations are provided and triggered manually. But if it's not provided, good luck. Just say, you want to print your document with the odd pages rotated ... it's not going to be easy ... perhaps print to a pdf, then use an external editor to MANUALLY rotate each odd page! Or print odds and evens, then MANUALLY interleave the pages. It can be done, but we're encouraged to do it manually and mechanically :(

Godel_unicode 4y ago
For virtually any issue you have with Office the answer is to find the Python module for the document format and write a quick script. Then, instead of some arcane shell monstrosity that’s easier to rewrite than edit, you have a script whose function is obvious and testable. Rinse and repeat for all of the actual examples people come up with for how pipelines are better. They’re not magic, they’re just a tool. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/working-with-page-orientations-and-pagination-properties-python-docx-module/ https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/working-with-page-orientations...
lmm 4y ago
In the old days Office came with a macro recorder that you could use for that kind of thing.