🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <445@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> gae@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu.UUCP (Gerald Edgar) writes:
|
|A three-button mouse allows 8 combinations.  If you add double and triple
|clicks, how many is that?
|
|I can imagine the manuals...
|
|"While holding down the middle button, double-click the left button and
|simultaneously triple-click the right button ... "

No you can't. 

In most cases the manuals for the basic tools only describe the way to
bind the complex actions to your own functions. 

When you can combine
	1 of n mouse buttons
	control/shift/meta modifiers
	double/triple clicks
	mouse chords (pressing 2 of 3, or 3 of 3)
you end up with so much flexibility that you in reality use modifiers
to have GENERAL meanings like:

	shift - changes direction of function
	control - modifies function - may dramaticly change interface
	double-click - select word instead of letter
	triple-click - select sentance or line instead of letter.
	pressing three mouse buttons - on-line help manual, exit, etc.

and so on.

It is a lot easier to remember the modifiers because there are
patterns involved. And because of the number of modifiers that are
available - it is easier to group together modifiers because you have
so many combinations, you can afford to NOT USE many of the combinations.

To continue the example, in SunView - the middle mouse button moves a window.
Adding the Control-key modifier changes the function to resize.

The left mouse button brings the window to the front. The shift-
modifier reversing the direction so the window goes to the bottom.

In scroll-bars, the shift-modifier reverses the direction of the
scrolling.

Most tools don't use many complex modifiers.  Complex modifiers are
not needed because you HAVE so many combinations.  One exception is
the interface to Emacs. Since emacs is so flexible, the user interface
to emacs should also be flexible. So if the user WANTS to bind a
(double click the left and middle button while holding down the meta
key) sequence to an operation, it is because the user finds some
convenient way to remember the sequence or because all of the other
combinations are already used.

I have a chart I use for the Emacstool/GNUemacs bindings. 

To be honest, I don't know anyone whom uses more than a hundred
different mouse/keyboard combinations from memory. But then I haven't
asked around :-)

Remember, these modifiers should be _optional_ in a friendly window system.
The basic interface should work without double-clicking, function
keys, chords, etc. These modifiers should be easy to learn because of
some mnemonics like the ones I mentioned above.

I like SunView myself - having used it for years. It should be more
customizable, which is one reason I am looking forward to NeWS.

One other point I would like to make about SunView and three-button mice:
Any mouse/keypad accelerator that has a dramatic effect usually has a
warning if the results cannot be undone, giving the user a change to
change his/her mind. This is very important and encourges people to
experiment, because if there are wrong, the wrong action can be undone.
-- 
	Bruce G. Barnett 	<barnett@ge-crd.ARPA> <barnett@steinmetz.UUCP>
				uunet!steinmetz!barnett