Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!haven!udel!princeton!phoenix!bskendig From: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Help! Anyone know how to force the mouse to a location? Message-ID: <17054@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 7 Jun 90 16:32:01 GMT References: <1990Jun5.091419.14219@portia.Stanford.EDU> <16995@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <1990Jun6.083741.4740@canon.co.uk> <3645@rodan.acs.syr.edu> <1990Jun7.090438.10194@canon.co.uk> Reply-To: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) Organization: Starfleet Academy: Princeton University PQC PTC CIT EECS SCI Lines: 114 In article <1990Jun7.090438.10194@canon.co.uk> smith@canon.co.uk (Mark Smith) writes: >rsholmes@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Rich Holmes) writes: >>In article <1990Jun6.083741.4740@canon.co.uk> smith@canon.co.uk (Mark Smith) writes >>>A perfect example of this is the old game Lode Runner, where >>>you indicate the direction of the man on the screen by pushing the mouse >>>in the appropriate direction. The man then keeps going in that direction >>>until the mouse is pushed in another direction. >>For a situation like this, why not use two keyboard keys to indicate left or >>right? In fact, why not left arrow and right arrow? >>Remember: just 'cause it's a Mac program doesn't mean you have to use the mouse >>to do everything. They sold you the keyboard for a reason. A very good point. However, the mouse is good for anything involving relative motion. I'm not familiar with Lode Runner; if the man on the screen has to be able to go at any speed in any direction (as opposed to stop/go in eight directions), then the mouse is the things to use. In that case you'd make the pointer visible, and have the man stop moving when the pointer is in a neutral place on the screen -- such as its center. Or, since the mouse in this case really doesn't have anything to do with the pointer, you might have a small window in a corner of the screen with a crosshairs to show you where the mouse is; when the crosshairs is centered, the man stops moving. Otherwise, if the man only moves horizontally, vertically, and diagonally, and only in one speed, why are you using the mouse? You mean that if I move the mouse way off to the left and then a tiny bit to the right, I get the same effect as if I had moved the mouse way off to the right? Weird. Ever play video games? Think about using a joystick for Missile Command, or paddle controllers for Pac-Man. Ugh! You need the right tools for the job. >>The mouse is a pointing device. Please don't use it for other things. >*** flame on *** Hold on, here, no flames! This is a serious subject. No one has the right answer. I'm looking for someone to persuade me that I'm wrong. >Well, the smarminess of this answer might not have bugged me so much if >it wasn't also so stupid. The technique I described is used in all kinds >of games, including Dark Castle and Apache Strike. Keyboards simply don't >give you the fine level of control needed, so you are right in that >your idea *is* crazy, but unfortunately it *won't* work. For Apache Strike (piloting a helicopter), it works very well. Ditto for Dark Castle (where you use the keyboard to move the on-screen character, who can only move in four directions at one speed, but use the mouse to control his aim for throwing stones). Note that in each game the pointer is invisible; you don't need it, and displaying it would only be a nuisance to the player. >The mouse is not a pointing device. The mouse is a device which reports >relative movements. In *most* cases, it happens to be convenient to >relate those relative movements to an absolute screen position. Too bad >you can't make full use of it in other situations as well. If you need to use the mouse as an analog input device for something, just make the pointer invisible. If you can't because you need the pointer, then you should probably rethink your application -- you're trying to have the mouse do too many things at once. >How you can come to the conclusion that controlling movement on the >screen in the way I described is like "using a screwdriver to pound in >a nail" is beyond me. A better analogy is that it's like having a >drill, and not being allowed to use it to as an electric screwdriver >because "drills are only for making holes in things". Interesting analogy... ;) The point here is that you should always use the best tool for the job. If the mouse is what you need, feel free to use it -- just remember to get rid of the pointer first by making it invisible so as not to confuse the user. On a similar note, people have brought up the point that, in a very complicated application, the program may need to move the pointer around itself to make life easier on the user. My reply to that is that two wrongs don't make a right -- the application should be made simpler (read: more intuitive). That's what the Macintosh stands for. For instance, look at System 7 (well, you can't *look* at it yet, but bear with me). The Finder will show you aliases: icons that aren't really files themselves, but that behave just like files, and actually point to files in other places. This could have turned out to be a pretty hairy deal -- how do you distinguish aliases? Do you put a box around them? Give them special icons? Add things to their names? Not distinguish them at all to prevent confusion? The final decision was to tell alias icons apart by displaying their names in italics. A simple, elegant solution, in my opinion, instead of cluttering up windows with extra pictures. You say the pointer will get lost in the jumble of information packed into your Great American Spreadsheet? Are you sure you're not displaying too much information at once, or perhaps you haven't displayed it as concisely as it might be? That's my point. And, to bring up one last point, I think that too much discussion about mouse techniques causes a person to use the word "point" entirely too much. Is it just me, or have I really overused the word? Sheesh. ;+) (A bit of pointed humor, there.) And to the guy who wondered if the thought police were onto him yet: A tall man wearing a trenchcoat will stop by your house later today. |-) << 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.