This was the very first file I down loaded on Ticalc. My friends told me that if I wanted to play games on my calculator, I would need some sort of program manager. I immediately browsed this site for one. When I came across Doors, I was amazed by the great graphics shown in the screen shots and decided to download it. BIG MISTAKE...

While the graphics are great, the program is HORRIBLY ANNOYING. It takes FOREVER to get to the game you want thanks to the obnoxious mouse. The scroll bar is another problem. When you try to click it and scroll up it doesn't even work. The worst part of Doors is definitely the mouse editor... It flashes randomly and violently making it hard to look at. The cursor also randomly jumps too far making editing a long lasting task.

Graphics 3/10

That mouse editor was HORRIBLE!

User friendliness - 1/10

Slow mouse, annoying scroll bar, glitched program editor.....

Originality - 3/10

It has a mouse...

Over all - 7/30

I highly suggest that if you want a good program manager, download ANYTHING BUT THIS!

Bill:

I understand that you were frustrated with your experiences with Doors CS, and I'm sorry that you had a negative experience. However, I feel that you may have not gotten a chance to fully appreciate the features and power of Doors CS. For example, did you know that you can use the [+] and [-] buttons to scroll up and down the desktop without having to click the scrollbar? With the newest beta of Doors CS (http://dcs.cemetech.net), namely Doors CS 6.7.6 beta, there are tons of other shortcuts as well, like [4][5][6] top run the programs on the top row of the desktop, and [1][2][3] to run the programs on the bottom row of the desktop. I would appreciate if you would stop by the forum on my website, Cemetech (http://www.cemetech.net/forum), and post a more detailed critique of your problems with Doors CS. I also recommend you try the latest beta, as I hope many of your issues have already been addressed. Thanks.

Cheers,
Christopher "Kerm Martian" Mitchell

It's annoying when people don't read the readme, I must say.
(It's called the readme for a reason! )
Let's hope this resolves things, and he becomes a regular DCS user.

Hmm, 5 days of potential users, down the drain ;.;

Qazz42 recently brought my attention to a review of Doors CS from someone who doesn't seem to know how to read readmes

I agree with his review. Shortcuts are supposed to save time for power users, not partially replace the broken primary interface.

DCS's primary interface (emulated mouse) sucks big time - it's horrible. His review is spot on. Kerm, if you don't like it, get rid of the crappy mouse. Or, make it so the default interface doesn't use a mouse, but a mouse appears when you plug in a physical mouse.

Changing the review process or ranting about people not reading readmes is simply dodging or attempting to silence extremely valid criticism.

My issue is not with him disliking the interface. My issue is him not reading the readme to see that there are alternatives to almost everything the mouse is used for in the form of keyboard shortcuts and TabFuncs.

Edit: And I therefore am saying that I am quite happy with the interface and don't think it's broken at all. The shortcuts are meant to have two uses, both speed boosts for power users, and alternatives for people who don't want to deal with a mouse.

Err, no, it means that it's impossible to appeal to every user with a single interface choice, so I made some concessions in the form of alternatives for people who don't like the primary interface as much.

Let me try and be the diplomat here. Kerm, why not use your mouse as the primary UI, but have an onscreen display say, "hotkey UI available with these keys" or something like that. When I design, I assume that my user will not read the text file. So I make all alternative settings easy to find and modify.

Just to kind of play devil's advocate here, software is supposed to be intuitive enough that you shouldn't need to read a readme. I've personally never found it unintuitive, but I assume that that may be partially attributed to the fact that I read a lot of things here about new features and their proper usage. Maybe first boot upon installation should have a miniature in-app instruction page with the basics?