Commands for invoking Dingus

Question

I found the multiple ways of getting into the Dingus a bit confusing at first. You have File>Open in Dingus…, which opens a file, as you would expect from a command on that menu, but also Preview>Open in Dingus to open the current document. The indication that you're not going to present an open dialogue (no ellisis) is pretty subtle. Perhaps this should be rephrased, something like Inspect in Dingus?

More seriously confusing is Help>Markdown Dingus, which I expected to show me the Dingus help, instead of opening the Dingus, where I had to click on the ? to get the actual help.

Feel free to ignore these comments, which are purely subjective. Other people might find these commands entirely intuitive.

Brett Terpstra · Answer

The last point makes sense, although the same could be said for every other item in the Help menu, as only one of them opens the Help. Originally it made sense that the Dingus was a Help item, as it was literally there to teach the difference between the multiple processors. Given that it still serves that purpose in addition to being a built-in editor, I think it makes sense there, but I could change the menu item to be "Open Markdown Dingus".

"Inspect in Dingus" invokes the idea that the actual Web Inspector would be available, which it is not. The path
Preview->Open in Dingus" very much says to me "open the preview in Dingus". And File->Open in Dingus says "open a file in the Dingus", so I'm not inclined to modify those two. The only solution to that suggstion would be to eliminate one and have the other offer a menu to open a file or the current preview, but that seems far less intuitive to me.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll give them some thought.

Commands for invoking Dingus

1 Answers