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From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Help with double-click recognition.
Message-ID: <6685@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 25 Oct 89 23:34:37 GMT
References: <603@granite.dec.com> <1922@bacchus.dec.com> <1490@esquire.UUCP> <6564@ficc.uu.net> <17943@bellcore.bellcore.com> <6594@ficc.uu.net> <3400@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <6647@ficc.uu.net> <3581@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 53

I said:
> >chording/double-clicks/etc are a kludge. One button -> one action. If you
> >want to do something more complex, use a menu or a poke point.

In article <3581@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) writes:
> First of all, I want a window system that allows me to
> customize the HECK out of it. I want to be as efficient as possible.

Ah, another misunderstanding. I'm not talking about user-defined short-cuts.
I'm talking about the normal dumb-new-user-on-new-account mode. Sure, let
people customise the window system all they want.

But an application should, by default, conform to a simple convention
that doesn't involve double-clicking, shift-clicking, chording, and so
on.

> Also, as I have stated before, The use of such complex bindings
> should be as accelerators - unnecessary for the new user, but
> available for the power user.

Like I said, another misunderstanding.

> (I don't know what a "poke point" is.)

SCADA industry terminology for an active area on the screen, like a close
icon on a window border.

> 2) Many mouse based editors support single clicks to select a character,
> and multiple clicks to select words, sentences, paragraphs or entire documents.

This doesn't have to be handled with timing, though. I use such a tool,
and it works by seeing, on each click, whether you're still on the same
character. If so it cycles the scope.

[lots of shortcut examples deleted]

> Any other action, like poping up a menu, really slows down the user
> (With the exception of Don Hopkins Pie Menus, which can be selected before the
> menu appears. You can even select an item from  a nested menu before it appears!)

I've heard of these. They sound cool.

That's an implementation detail, then. On the Amiga, for instance, the
menus don't go through the layers system: the screen is frozen while the
menu is up, but because it's so fast the screen isn't frozen for very long.

Summary: let the user do whatever she wants, but don't require him to
learn any more than select/perform/menu.
-- 
Peter da Silva, *NIX support guy @ Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Biz: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Fun: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-'
"That particular mistake will not be repeated.  There are plenty of        'U`
 mistakes left that have not yet been used." -- Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)