steffen@ihu1h.UUCP (Joe Steffen) (05/08/84)
Mouse-based text editors allow you to select an area of text by sweeping-out a rectangle on the screen, which is highlighted. These editors usually have a pop-up menu that you use to select whether you want the text moved, copied, or deleted. If it is to be moved or copied, you also indicate the destination location with the mouse. My questions are, assuming a multi-button mouse: What is the best/preferred/natural/etc. order of these operations, that is, should you select the text first or the move/copy/delete operation? Should the destination location be the next place pointed to by the mouse, or should you have to select put-back on a copy/delete/put-back menu? If you have a copy/delete/put-back menu, and delete is selected, should subsequent text selections be deleted as soon as they are swept out with a mouse? If you had only a single-button mouse, or only wanted to use one button of a multi-button mouse, how does that affect the answers to the above questions? -- Joe Steffen, AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL, (312) 979-5381
steffen@ihu1h.UUCP (Joe Steffen) (05/12/84)
The mailed replys to my article are unanimously in favor of selecting the text before selecting the operation, because this is modeless. The number of mouse buttons was irrelevant. This "select object then select operation" method prompts me to ask another question: Should window control work the same way? My only experience is with the Teletype 5620 (aka Blit). In the jim editor you select the object (text) before the operation. But in the layers window manager, you select the operation (new/delete/etc.), the mouse cursor icon changes based on the operation, and then you sweep out a new window, select the window to be deleted, etc. -- Joe Steffen, AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL, (312) 979-5381