barnett@grymoire.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) (07/21/90)
In article <4320@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony) writes: > If we want to discuss the pros and cons of this philosophy then fine, > but let's make it explicit. Otherwise what is the point? I have never disagreed with the basic philosophy of the Mac. I have two of them. I do disagree that the Mac UI is the ultimate interface. You want to be explicit, you got it. I wrote: >>I never said that pop-up menus would replace the pull-down menus. >>They could augment the Mac interface and be a superset of the current >>UI. > There sometimes but not others? Goodbye! If you don't understand, then ask. Don't be rude. I meant that it is possible to have pull down menus and pop-up menus in such a way that the current Mac user would never notice any difference, but the power Mac user could be much more efficient. I'm not proposing changing the basic style of the Mac UI. Do you think I am an airhead? >>I agree that some interfaces that use multiple mouse buttons are bad. >>That doesn't mean that they are all bad, or hard to learn. >>People keep talking about users who get confused with the >>functionality of the different mouse buttons. >>Surely people have considered ways to solve this problem. >>I can think of a dozen physical ways off the top of my head. >Okay. Give us 2/3 functions which are always useful, no matter what >is being pointing at. There are two problems here, and I don't think you understand either one of them. The first problem is "Can a mouse be built with more than one button in such a way that people won't be confused?" This is what I meant when I said there were physical means that can be used to distinquish between two buttons. The second problem is "how to use a two button mouse". Let me give a specific example that is compatible with the current Mac UI. Let's assume Apple comes out with a new keyboard that have a special key on it, that no other Mac keyboard has. Let's assume this key is marked "Menu". If you never press it, you never notice the difference. If you do press it, the menu bar (File, Edit, etc.) appears under your mouse. Perhaps it is arranged horizontally. Perhaps vertically. There are lots of variations, including remembering the last selection from the menu and positioning the pop-up menu so you are closest to the last choice you made. Some systems allow you to specify "remember last choice" as an option. If you don't like it, you don't use this feature. But now that you are a power user, you might find this very useful. Yes! I know! There is a problem! you have to use two hands! One for the mouse. One to pop up the menu! Bad UI! Bad dog! Solution - Apple now offers a "power mouse". If you want one, you order it special. It moves the menu button from the keyboard to the mouse. And it has a special cdev that lets you a) either make BOTH buttons act the same (that's in case the power user changes her/his mind) b) Make one of them act like a menu button. Now the "power user" can get the menu bar without moving the mouse. And if this power user does press the "menu" button by accident, they just release it, as no choice is made. Or they can use the regular Mac UI. Or Both. Maybe change every other day. What's the problem? :-) -- Bruce G. Barnett barnett@crd.ge.com uunet!crdgw1!barnett