addison@pollux.usc.edu (Richard Addison) (03/15/90)
Sometimes I use the keyboard to move the mouse pointer, typically to move something strictly vertically or horizontally. However, the way it is implemented now makes it a pain to move the mouse pointer from the keyboard mainly because the auto-repeat feature causes EXPONENTIAL acceleration! My suggestion? When the auto-repeat kicks in, move the mouse pointer only one unit per repeat. Furthermore, if the shift-amiga-arrow keys are used, move the mouse pointer a more reasonable distance instead of 100 units. Moving 10 units might be nice for people who are most familiar with decimal. Moving 8 or 9 units would be nice for use with topaz/8 or topaz/9. --Rich
ln63wkp@sdcc4.ucsd.edu (Viet Ho) (03/16/90)
In article <23493@usc.edu> addison@pollux.usc.edu (Richard Addison) writes: >Sometimes I use the keyboard to move the mouse pointer, typically to move >something strictly vertically or horizontally. However, the way it is >implemented now makes it a pain to move the mouse pointer from the keyboard >mainly because the auto-repeat feature causes EXPONENTIAL acceleration! I do too. Esp when I am doing alot of typing and would prefer not to have my right hand leave the keys. How about a PD util that'll support easier mouse movement with the keys?
gbbrooks@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU (G. Brandon Brooks) (03/17/90)
In article <9103@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> ln63wkp@sdcc4.ucsd.edu (Viet Ho) writes: >In article <23493@usc.edu> addison@pollux.usc.edu (Richard Addison) writes: >>Sometimes I use the keyboard to move the mouse pointer, typically to move >>something strictly vertically or horizontally. However, the way it is >>implemented now makes it a pain to move the mouse pointer from the keyboard >>mainly because the auto-repeat feature causes EXPONENTIAL acceleration! > > I do too. Esp when I am doing alot of typing and would prefer >not to have my right hand leave the keys. How about a PD util >that'll support easier mouse movement with the keys? What about an easier way to use the menus with the keyboard? By pressing (for example) F1 and F2, the menu bar would be controlled by the arrow keys. Pressing left and right would cycle through the Menu Titles and up and down would select the options within a menu. Pressing F1 and F2 again would select the item. It seems a lot easier than what it currently is; Holding Alt & Amiga AND the arrow keys to get control of the mouse; place it in the upper half of the screen, hold ALT & Open Amiga, move around with the arrows, and let go of everything. Hopefully something like this will be included in 1.4. -Brandon
akcs.clemon@wcbcs (Craig Lemon) (03/21/90)
> What about an easier way to use the menus with the keyboard? By >pressing (for example) F1 and F2, the menu bar would be controlled by the >arrow keys. Pressing left and right would cycle through the Menu Titles and >up and down would select the options within a menu. Pressing F1 and F2 again >would select the item. NNNNOOOOOOO!!! AUUUUUGGGGHHH!!! THAT's GETTING CLOSE TO IBM!!!!!!! :-) :-) On a more serious note..... I think this is a good idea but not with the keys you suggested. This is even closer to IBM keyboard-controlled-menus-un-written-standards _BUT_ you may observe that the menu titles are displayed when hitting RA-Alt. By pressing the first letter of the menu (terrible English) you could activate that menu, if there are more than one with that letter it could cycle through each one. After that UP/DOWN and LEFT/RIGHT could be used to select which menu item. Then ESC and RETURN can be used as Cancel and Select on the particular menu item. The first key combination would reduce conflicts with other macro programs (ie. Mach II, Terminal prgs) because not many use the RA and Alt keys at the same time. This allows an almost unnoticed method of changing Workbench "modes" shall we say. ONce into the keyboard menu mode you wouldn't have to worry because the cursor keys etc... will be taken to mean menu movements and all further key combinations would do nothing. (Unless someone can think of something useful to do with them :-). Possibly the "hot-key" menu functions (RA-xxx) could still be enabled. If A HOT-key is pressed that function would be activated regardless if it is in the same menu as the currently selected keyboard menu. (whew!) Other useful functions might be actual Workbench ooptions for things like SunMouse (activating the window which the mouse is over), mouse accelerations which are greater, the adding of user menus (ie. MyMenus. I believe this is already in 1.4 -- not sure, not developer yet), Overscan support, support for more bitplanes. Basically make Workbench originally support all of the functions that people have written into useful PD utilities and make it the powerful program it has to potential to be. This would also eliminate A LOT of problems due to conflicting hacks etc... We wouldn't need hacks if it was already supported now would we? Multi-user would also be nice in some implementation in some form (even crude). I know stock Amiga hardware isn't suited to a large UNIX-like environment but it would make bbs and networking lives much easier. I mean look at UNIX. A lot of programs try to imitate that. Lots of people are looking for BBSes that you could have "login:" and then run scripts for users and only give them certain accesses. That's UNIX. Not a neat little BBS program written to look cute! That's just the way it is even if you're a local user (then you get graphics too). I'd like to see the Amiga taken to it's full; potential even if it means selling some programs marked "requires WB 1.4 or higher". It's the constant griping of people that complain about something not running on their 1000. They say that they've had they're Amiga for a long time and have supported it from the beginning. Then you find that they have WB 1.1 or something silly. Look at Messy-DOS (Let's not and say we didn't even consider it :-). Lots of people LOOOOOVE them. ALL of their software say : "requires DOS x.x or higher", why can't we? How can we move ahead if we're stuck in the past??? Please excuse the length and occasional poor formatting. Ideas are just spewing out and I'm editing this online in a 10 line text window. Real fun... (I even have to upload my .signature at the end of every message!!! :- } -- _ Craig Lemon // |_| Kitchener, Ontario \X/ | | M I G A Amiga 2000 -- 2400 bps -- AmigaUUCP 1.03D ..!watmath!xenitec!wcbcs!lemsys!clemon ..!watmath!xenitec!wcbcs!{AKCS.clemon,_clemon} ^^ Not Reliable Yet
jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) (03/22/90)
In article <23493@usc.edu> addison@pollux.usc.edu (Richard Addison) writes:
)Sometimes I use the keyboard to move the mouse pointer, typically to move
)something strictly vertically or horizontally. However, [ ... ]
You'll like it much better under V1.4. Thanks for the suggestions.
jimm
--
-------------------------------------------------- - opinions by me
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I bring you love and deeper understanding.' " -lyrics by Kate Bushdenisb@portia.Stanford.EDU (Denis Bohm) (03/26/90)
It sure would be nice if new features like being able to access menus from the keyboard are compatable with other "standard" systems. For example, MOTIF (yay!) and PM (yuck! I said one of the IBM words, on no I said it again!) use the same method to allow the user to do this. Denis Bohm (YAAF - yet anouther AMIGA fan)