User Experience Engineering

How annoying is it that your home directory under Windows contains spaces, capitalization, and long words?

C:\Documents and Settings\monte>

C:\home\monte>

Through my Cygwin configuration, bash.exe resolves the tilde character as the current user's home directory.

echo ~ /home/monte

If you've spent any time in *nix or Cygwin, you know how handy this shortcut can be.

Still, most Windows applications default to the Windows %HOMEPATH% directory, or worse, the "My Documents" and other pre-made directories below %HOMEPATH%.

C:\> echo %HOMEPATH% C:\Documents and Settings\monte

So, when you try to save or open a file, you have to go hunting for it in your real directory structure, or conform to Windows. Or, you could set the default directory for each application, and hope the settings are not in your next update or BSOD.

I got tired and finally tried something twisted:

My Computer : Properties : Advanced : Environment Variables User Variables for %USERNAME% [ New ] Variable Name:~ Variable Value:C:\home\monte OK : OK : OK Start:Run cmd echo %~% C:\home\monte Run %~% Explorer window opens to home path. Almost Any Application : File : Save As %~% ENTER key Explorer in dialog box switches to home path.

Okay, so typing "%~%" is three times longer than "~". It's still one third the length of "%HOMEPATH%", and one fifteenth the length of "C:\Documents and Settings\monte\My Documents".

And for Windows, that is progress.

posted by Monte Hayward  # 7:17 PM 2 comments