Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!bskendig From: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: There *ARE* uses for forcing the mouse to a location (non-games). Message-ID: <17041@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 7 Jun 90 01:46:30 GMT References: <1990Jun5.091419.14219@portia.Stanford.EDU> <16995@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <2285@speedy.mcnc.org> Reply-To: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) Organization: Starfleet Academy: Princeton University PQC PTC CIT EECS SCI Lines: 101 In article <2285@speedy.mcnc.org> kk@mcnc.org.UUCP (Krzysztof Kozminski) writes: >1) Let the user choose in the Control Panel whether she/he wants to allow > a 'jumping mouse pointer'. There's lotsa space there to fit one checkbox > that is needed. Can you say `counterintuitive'? Sure, you can... > ... >In article <16995@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) writes: >>In article <1990Jun5.091419.14219@portia.Stanford.EDU> canuck@portia.Stanford.EDU (William Stocker) writes: >>>I'm writing a Mac program in THINK Pascal 3.0, and need to force the >>>mouse to a particular screen location. >> DON'T DO IT. It's *very* bad technique, and your application >> won't run, besides. >>Tell me what, exactly, this `good purpose' is that you've thought up, >>and I and millions of other Netters will help you come up with a more >>proper way of doing it. >Purpose 1. Imagine running MacDraw on a large screen (1200x1000 pixels >or more), editing some stuff in the lower right corner. You want to >change a tool and continue drawing in the lower right corner. You have >to move the mouse all the way to the palette, select a tool, and move >it all the way back. Kinda trouble, especially on a cluttered desk with >all 2 inches to mouse about without bumping your coke can off the desk... >Solution accordingly to the guidelines: you gotta roll this mouse. Or >dig up this reference card and find out which option-command-control- >capslock-shift combination selects the tool you want (in case your >program was produced by a certain company that considers shift-option-H >to be a perfect mnemonic for changing the text style to subscript :-) Then we've gotta come up with better standard guidelines. I'd rather be able to hit Command-Minus to select subscript than have to follow the mouse as it jumps all over the screen... >Solution that comes immediately to anybody whose perspective has not >been limited by a puny 512x340 screen and/or by The Gospel from Apple (or >whose perspective has been broadened by a substantial dose of opiates >after surgery :-) >- press, say, key: pointer moves to the palette containing > controls <-> CTRL key - quite easy to remember. >- select the tool you want, >- release the : pointer moves to the area where you were doing your > things Better yet -- hit the Control key, and the tool palette comes up right under your pointer. Same effect, but the machine doesn't wrench your hand away from you. >Purpose 2: You are editing elaborate widgets on your elaborate multi-screen >setup, double-click on a widget to open a dialog, and thanx to the ossified >guidelines gotta move this mouse to the dialog, then back to your widget ... >Opening the dialog in the vicinity of the widget would obscure the widget, >hence is no good... >Solution: if looking at the widget is useful while manipulating the dialog, >open the dialog on another screen, jump the pointer there, return the >pointer to the widget after dismissing the dialog. Or hit Return for the OK button, Command-Period for the Cancel button, and other command-things for other buttons (such as Cmd-S for "Save"). I can just see it now -- I'm working, and suddenly my pointer vanishes. After a long search, I find it on another monitor beside a dialog box. Foo. >I would be very interested in hearing any suggestions for handling such >situations that are both convenient and consistent with the guidelines >(then I'll swallow another Percocet and generate more 'good purposes'). The point here is that the Mac interface is designed to be as natural as possible. The pointer is your hand. When you're working at your desk and you need to grab a pencil instead of the pen you're using, do you teleport your hand over to the pencil-box to get one? No -- you put the pencilbox as close to your work area as you can. >Actually, here's the best reason: LOTS of programs using X-windows move >the mouse. How are you going to run X-windows on a Mac without this >capability? Go ahead and provide the capability in an X-windows server; I don't feel like getting into the methodology behind different windowing systems. But Apple is trying to make their Macintosh OS as intuitive as possible; having the pointer jump all over the screen would sacrifice this to a degree. The Macintosh has gained a lot of its success because it finds innovative, intuitive ways to simply do things that are complicated to do on other machines. If you start doing esoteric things with menus, windows, and especially the pointer, novice users will become confused and leave. << Brian >> -- | Brian S. Kendig \ Macintosh | Engineering, | bskendig | | Computer Engineering |\ Thought | USS Enterprise | @phoenix.Princeton.EDU | Princeton University |_\ Police | -= NCC-1701-D =- | @PUCC.BITNET | ... s l o w l y, s l o w l y, w i t h t h e v e l o c i t y o f l o v e.