Mail Archives: cygwin/2005/02/09/05:43:48
On Tuesday, February 08, 2005 7:25 PM Dave Korn wrote:
> It's insane.
>
> Unless you have the precision muscular control skills of a
world-class
> gymnast, a mouse always moves at least a little bit when you press
down on the
> button.
Which is one reason why I prefer a trackball - moving and clicking are
independent operations. They take a bit of getting used to, but after
the first day or so, you stop trying to shove it around your desk.
Once you've got used to it, the mouse seems very clumsy. I also found
that my RSI and back problems disappeared, but YMMV.
> This makes it very tricky to select a new window without
unintentionally
> erasing the contents of the clipboard that you were hoping to paste
there
> because the mouse moved just enough as you clicked it to select a
single
> character and the auto-copy destroyed your clipboard contents without
asking.
I use focus-follows-mouse (aka X-mouse) so no clicking is required.
> Destroying user data without any kind of confirmation, are-you-sure,
or
> requiring a difficult-to-type-accidentally key-combination (such as
ctrl-c) is
> an appallingly incompetent piece of UI design. It's like having a
pistol
> without a safety catch, or an ICBM without a dual-key control.
A fair point.
> FWIW, it's not just X programs that do this. TeraTerm (a 'doze
terminal
> emulator)
One reason I use it ;-)
> And don't tell me...
I wouldn't dream of telling the great Dave K anything! ksh saved my
sanity back in the days when it was just csh or sh.
> ...that I'm only ever allowed to select windows by clicking on
> the menu bar and that I get what I deserve if I click in the main part
of the
> window. If you have lots of windows open, the menu bars of many of
them are
> often obscured. Why should 99% of the window's surface area be
verboten for
> selecting that window?
Again, focus-follows-mouse (and auto-raise if you like that sort of
thing - I don't) WFM.
> The entire model is screwy. It wastes lots of my time and
interrupts my
> workflow. The 'doze way works smoothly and is much closer to
fail-safe: it's
> very hard to accidentally press Ctrl+C and lose data in the same way.
Equally, I waste lots of time going back to the original window
because I forgot to press ctrl-C.
> Real experts...
avoid using the pointer altogether?
> ...operate a computer with one hand on the mouse and one on the
> keyboard *at the same time* anyway.
OK, now you're just showing off!
I guess it all boils down to personal preference in the end. Until
the telepathic HCI comes along (RSN), we'll all struggle to
communicate our intentions computers from time to time. Even then,
I'm not sure that I would really appreciate a computer that obligingly
uninstalled all Microsoft programs every 5 minutes!
Phil
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