Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!autodesk!peb
From: peb@Autodesk.COM (Paul Baclaski)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NOT (click to type) in NeXTStep?
Summary: timing is everything
Message-ID: <543@autodesk.COM>
Date: 12 Nov 90 22:21:29 GMT
References: <1990Oct28.165341.6949@cs.cmu.edu> <vesper.657582579@kong> <56054@brunix.UUCP>
Organization: Autodesk Inc., Sausalito CA, USA
Lines: 26

In article <56054@brunix.UUCP>, rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) writes:
> Although I hate to repeat myself, I think I have to post this again
> ....In order to
> save your (i.e. the users) eyes and the performance of the cpu, the WS
> requires you to click on a window of the application you want to focus
> on. Without this, a slight move of the mouse could result in 10 focus
> changes in half a second and thus you would see all the panels and
> menues flashing over your screen. 

I hate to repeat myself too, but there *is* another way:

Sun solves spurious-window-activation-problem by having a 200 millisecond
time filter in which your mouse must stop for 200 milliseconds before
the active window is switched.

Sun also allows click-to-type.

Customizability is not inherently bad as long as you have good defaults.
Compare GNU emacs with Unipress emacs:  both are customizable, but
Unipress does the right thing out of the box, while GNU demands that
you make your arrow keys work (amoung other things).

Sorry to beat a dead horse,

Paul E. Baclaski
peb@autodesk.com