B10[mg]

Through Kurt's blog, I found out about Nanoblogger GUI.

The rationale behind this, according to its author is:

...sometimes [it's] annoying to use a command line programm instead of a gui because on each use:

-you need to start a terminal window :-) ...
-you have to change to the nanoblogger directory...
-you need to know the program parameters...
-you must type a lot of characters...

Although the screenshot looks nice and shiny, I truly doubt its usefulness.

Launching a terminal, the first annoyance shouldn't be a problem. Most nerds/geeks have a few opened already. Besides, the GUI has to be launched somehow too, which is probably a more time consuming process than a simple terminal.

The second annoyance just isn't correct. I've been using NanoBlogger for some time now, and as long as you configure it right (BLOG_DIR setting in $HOME/.nb.conf), there is no need to dive into the blog directory. Of course, the `nb` executable should be in your $PATH.

Like with every command line application, "you need to know the program parameters", but invoking `nb` without any, will give you the options and a few examples. People have no problem remembering `tar xzvf <file>`, so `nb -c 1 -a` shouldn't be too hard to remember either. And if it is too hard to remember, use an `alias`.

Last but not least, you "must type a lot of characters". Again, I have no clue where this comes from. `nb -c 1 -a` doesn't look like that many characters to me. Launching the GUI takes "a lot of characters" too.

I appreciate people trying to improve software, or generating new code, yet I like it even better if there's any usefulness involved. People have been suggesting web interfaces already too, but why then use NanoBlogger, the BASH blogger? If you enjoy GUIs better than CLIs, go for LiveJournal, Blogger.com, B2evolution, Movable Type, and all the GUIs that have been created for them ;-)