Board of honor and respect. Thanks for the best software solutions and interfaces

So, I want to say THANK YOU for the following things:

1. View for reading in browsers

In the days of early Windows, a parody of FIDO traveled around song Leonid Kaganov on the song “Rain”:

DOS…
The screen was filled with a blue veil of pure DOS.
Mouse…
The mouse suddenly became square and lost its shape…
I broke the window, the ninety-fifth window,
And I installed DOS, and then I saw:
This is happiness, that’s it.

Since then, I remember this song every time I manage to programmatically get rid of unnecessary layers of interfaces, unnecessary objects, and annoying elements.

I remember how incredibly happy I was when, after the next update, I discovered the “Reading View” button in my browser. Gradually, such a button appeared in almost all browsers, even mobile ones. Finally, you don’t have to install special plugins to get clean page text without unnecessary panels, menus and design frills. In this mode, I can once and for all set a convenient font, select the size and color of the text and background. And calmly read texts from any sites – in a familiar and comfortable way.

2. Two-panel file managers

We are talking about the legendary sequence of programs that originates in ancient versions of DOS. NC, VC, Dos Navigator, Total Commander, FAR and so on. There are no numbers for them. I have seen similar applications on all platforms, in all operating systems. I think the dual pane interface is a brilliant invention. It greatly simplifies working with files, performing standard and daily operations: copying, moving, viewing, searching… All sorts of “explorers” with their drag'n'drop will never compare in convenience to two panels.

I have long been firmly attached to the two-panel interface. When I have to work on a computer that does not have at least some kind of dual-panel file manager installed, I feel like a pilot who moved from an airliner to a corn farm.

3. Clipboard

Another wonderful and irreplaceable thing is the clipboard. We use it every day, we get used to it and don’t notice it. We take it for granted. But just imagine how inconvenient it would be for us to work if it were suddenly turned off.

Working with text, developing applications, processing images, managing spreadsheets… Many of the everyday tasks we solve using a computer are inextricably linked to the clipboard. “Copy – Cut – Paste” are three pillars on which many processes stand.

There is, however, a fly in the ointment in this barrel of functional honey. This is copying the formatting along with the text. For many years I was haunted by this annoying feature: in most cases I wanted to get just text in the buffer, without any formatting. But then I found a little utility called GetPlainText, added it to the Quick Launch bar, and finally cleared my tar.

4. Command line

When the first operating systems with windowed interfaces appeared, you might have thought that the command line would gradually go into decline. In general, you know everything yourself: “There will be no theater, no books, no cinema, just continuous television.” But the command line wandered from one OS version to another over and over again and had no intention of disappearing.

How grateful I am that it exists and that sometimes you can escape from all these stuffy bright applications into the fresh, black night of the console window! Breathe clean air and take a break from constantly twitching the mouse. Enjoy the zen of a black screen and a mysteriously flickering cursor in the upper left corner. Interact with the machine the good old-fashioned way: by typing commands on the keyboard. In short, see the song in point 1.

And I’m not even talking about automating routine operations. No “modern” interfaces with beautiful buttons can replace the ability to launch applications sequentially with a textual indication of the required parameters and the ability to seamlessly transfer the results of operations to each other.

5. Text files

I have already written about my reverent attitude towards text files. I wasn’t lying at all: texts are my main way of storing and creating content. I solve most work problems in a text editor. There I write program code, compose scripts, save and view information, read and write texts. I am also writing this article in a fairly simple and unpretentious text editor.

I would like to especially thank those who create modern text editors that allow you to work effectively and conveniently with simple, clean text. Now everyone can find an editor to suit their taste: from minimalistic console applications to complex multifunctional combines. But they all output simple text files that can be opened with any other text editor. And it doesn’t matter what will be inside: the text of the book or a set of XML tags. Plain Text is perhaps the most universal information storage format that does not depend on the application, platform or operating system.

And most importantly, I would like to say thank you to everyone who spends their time and resources to make our IT world better and more comfortable. There is more than enough entropy and disorder in our Universe.

Entities multiply and multiply without ceasing, generating mountains of digital garbage and slag. And how wonderful it is that there are those who, no matter what, continue to create and support solutions that make things simpler and clearer.