🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5828@internal.Apple.COM> casseres@apple.com (David Casseres) writes:
> In article <JACOBS.89Dec18090720@cmos.cs.utah.edu> jacobs@cs.utah.edu 
>(Steven R. Jacobs) writes:
>> Menus and mice are great when you are first learning to use a system, but
>> they get in the way of experienced users.
>
> Sorry, but this is an absurd statement.  There are many thousands of 
> experienced users who are very happy with the Mac interface.

"100,000 Mac users can't be wrong ..." Tell me about absurd.  You entirely
missed my point.  I'm not telling anybody not to use mice/menus etc.  They
are great for doing many things, especially when learning to use a new
software package.  All I'm saying is that mice/menus aren't the best way
to do _everything_, and there is a lot to be said for letting the user
decide when they are best.

I'm well aware that there are grundles of happy Mac'ers out there, but
there are also many thousands of Mac users that get tired of digging
through menus to do everything, when some simple typed commands would
perform the same operation on any system that had a little support for
typed commands.

> There is nothing in the Mac that forces any application to use the mouse.  
> In the early days of the Mac, quite a few developers did quick ports of 
> their PC applications, with type-in interfaces, to the Mac.  Guess what?  
> Nobody would buy them.  SOMEBODY wants the mouse whole lot!

You are putting words in my mouth that I did not use.  All I said was that
it is better to give the user a choice.  All commands with no mouse support
is almost as bad as all mouse support with no support for commands.

>> Sure, lots of applications will give you a choice in many commands, but
>> this is not part of the standard interface -- you can't even start up
>> the application without using the mouse.  This is a bug, not a feature.
>
> No, friend, this is a feature that you don't like.

I'm merely suggesting ways to improve on a good thing.  After all,
progress is not made by people that are satified with the status quo.

>> Again, giving the user a _choice_ is a better solution.
>
>  Talk to the application developers.

Why gripe to the application developers about a fundamental flaw in
the system?  All of the serious applications that I've seen have much
better keyboard support than the Finder.

--
Steve Jacobs  ({bellcore,hplabs,uunet}!utah-cs!jacobs, jacobs@cs.utah.edu)