🚀 go-pugleaf

It's interesting to note that the people who know the least about the
psychology and philosophy of user interfaces are the quickest to condemn
ideas such as this.  For instance, how does the enforced use of a mouse
effect someone who has (for whatever reason) poor hand-eye coordination?
What about someone who has the use of only one hand?  And what about
speed and ease of use considerations for normal people?  Do YOU like to
have to use the mouse to do trivial cursor motions in MacWrite (as an
example of the _wrong_way_)?

Function keys can be a mixed blessing, but so can extra shift keys, the
use of keyboard and mouse button combinations (just TRY to use the default
setup for uwm with one hand behind your back; then think about someone
who only HAS one hand...).  Some of the considerations of a user interface
are religious, but many aren't.

Consistency is a BIG plus also.  For instance, clicking on an iconified
xterm makes it open, but the same is not true of a closed GnuEmacs.
Stalman also felt the need to ignore the "standard" mouse icon for in text,
and switched it for the arrow; making Emacs different in yet another way.
(Actually, despite the fact that I use it, I could flame about the
inconsistencies of Emacs for hours...)

A given user interface system (such as X and all X applications) should
by default be very constant and consistent, but it should be very easy
to customize the defaults also.  The implementation of this may be much
harder, since the model looks something like:

  user actions --> mapping to standard action descriptions --> utilities 
							and applications
rather than

  user actions --> utilities and applications

but the ability to change actions UNIFORMLY is worth the extra work.  Using
this model, I could make my F3 key send a (de)iconify event to the current
window by only changing the action mapping.  Note also that the concept
of the current window would also be definable in the action mapping.

Just because you don't want to do window ops with your keyboard doesn't does
not give you license to prohibit it entirely.  If you don't like it, then
don't use it, but let those that might want to be able to do so.  Isn't
this the whole idea behind a customizable window system anyway?

	     -- Paul Placeway
		Department of Computer and Information Science
	SNail:	The Ohio State University
		2036 Neil Ave. Columbus OH USA 43210-1277
	ARPA:	paul@ohio-state.{arpa,csnet}
	UUCP:	...!cb{osgd,att}!osu-eddie!paul

-=-
	     -- Paul Placeway
		Department of Computer and Information Science
	SNail:	The Ohio State University
		2036 Neil Ave. Columbus OH USA 43210-1277
	ARPA:	paul@ohio-state.{arpa,csnet}
	UUCP:	...!cb{osgd,att}!osu-eddie!paul