Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!jarthur!wilkins From: wilkins@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Mark Wilkins) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: The Mouse -- What is its History? Message-ID: <9028@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> Date: 11 Oct 90 16:27:05 GMT References: <21056@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1123@helens.Stanford.EDU> Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711 Lines: 88 In article <1123@helens.Stanford.EDU> rudd@calvin.UUCP (Kevin Rudd) writes: >More buttons SHOULD be available if wanted No argument here. >and Apple has the responsibility to provide >a clean method for doing this as well as guidelines so that the GUI police >may be avoided. I disagree. Apple would only have that responsibility if a significant number of their users wanted multiple buttons on their mice. I, like you, are one of the rather small fraction of Mac users who have even seen a multiple button mouse. I started using the things a year after I bought my Mac, and three years after I learned the Mac interface. The truth is that there was nothing I could do with the multiple button mouse along with awm under X-windows that I couldn't do with a single-button Mac mouse and the Macintosh user interface. However, I could never remember which button to click to perform any given task, and the simplest window-resizing operation left me extremely confused at times. I respect your desire for a multiple button mouse, but if you start encouraging application developers to require multiple button mice then you will leave all the people who've only used Macs out in the cold. Anyway, Apple's human interface group has never been the final arbiter of the Mac interface. If an application developer feels that multiple buttons on the mouse could be useful, they're welcome to develop a product which takes advantage of them. Apple's human interface guidelines should be followed as far as they lead you, but they should never prevent you from striking out on your own when confronted with issues they don't address, and Apple's human interface group is the first to make this point. If you brought this discussion up with them, they'd tell you the same thing. Anyway, my point is that while there are applications which might benefit from a multiple button mouse, I don't see what the Mac user interface has to gain from more buttons on the mouse. >The standard argument that "its best >for you to have what we want you to have" just won't cut it anymore. Nobody argues this. Apple ships a configuration which works with 99% of the software products out there. You need a multiple button mouse? Buy one. Nobody's selling one? Maybe you're the only one who wants a multiple button mouse. Ever think of that? :-) Don't worry, you're not alone, of course. However, I argue that the only type of appication which warrants the added complexity of a multiple button mouse is a Macintosh implementation of X-windows or another, foreign user interface which assumes one. Furthermore, I suspect that if you're using X on a Mac there are ways to get a multiple button ADB mouse to use with it. >I'm all for a standard mouse interface --- lets come up with one which >FITS with the standard interface philosophy. Here's my suggestion for a standard mouse interface. It includes 1 button, sometimes accompanied by a modifier key press. In contrast with your suggestions, there's no learning curve for existing Mac users, it provides all the capabilities a Mac user needs, the hardware upgrade is free and thousands of products already use the new standard, although their developers didn't know it at the time. Perfect, don't you think? >Forcing it to fit into >the CURRENT interface and not a logical extension is like saying that >we should still be using system 1.0 with only the bugs fixed... And I'm >certainly looking forward to System 7.0... There's one fallacy here. System 7 does change the finder interface somewhat, but the BASIC MACINTOSH INTERFACE remains unchanged. You still have pull down menus, scroll bars which scroll things around, close boxes on windows, and one button. Add more features, yes, but if you change the fundamentals of the interface on a Mac user without providing benefits they'll notice IMMEDIATELY they'll scream to high heaven, as I'm doing now. If you want to change the fundamentals radically, of course, you no longer have a Mac. I suspect that to retain ease of use AND have multiple buttons would require a total redesign of the Mac system. What you get wouldn't be a Mac, though, it might not run existing Mac software, and IMHO it's kind of a waste to throw away the Mac interface if your SOLE reason for doing so is coaxing more buttons onto the mouse. -- Mark Wilkins -- ******* "Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude!" ********** *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Mark R. Wilkins wilkins@jarthur.claremont.edu {uunet}!jarthur!wilkins * ****** MARK.WILKINS on AppleLink ****** MWilkins on America Online ******