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From: sho@gibbs.physics.purdue.edu (Sho Kuwamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Message-ID: <5353@dirac.physics.purdue.edu>
Date: 24 Jun 91 19:01:13 GMT
References: <1991Jun23.150149.16969@Sugar.NeoSoft.com> <5342@dirac.physics.purdue.edu> <1991Jun24.094738.29131@Sugar.NeoSoft.com>
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Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept, W.Lafayette, IN
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In article <2button> peter@Sugar.NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <1button> sho@gibbs.physics.purdue.edu (Sho Kuwamoto) writes:
>> Agreed.  Could you refresh my memory about the standards for mouse
>> buttons on the Amiga?  One button brings up the menubar, right?

>In any case, one button brings up the menu bar (or, in my case, menu box...
>PopUpMenu should be shipped with the system, dammit), and the other selects
>the object to be operated on. Double-clicking is only used as a shortcut for
>SELECT-MENU-(select "Open")... and that's what "ACTIVATE" should be for.
>[...]
>Well, it's quite handy in paint programs and the like not to have to worry
>about system gadgets taking up space. For animation software, since it's
>going to go straight to video, that's even more important. Since there are
>two buttons, you can select a number of menu options at a time and have them
>take effect all at once without playing with keyboard shortcuts.
>
>With PopUpMenu you lose the "menu stretch", reaching across a large
>display with the mouse to get to the menus.
>
>Basically, it reduces screen clutter and user actions, and speeds up multiple
>selections.

Thanks for the clear explanation.  Now my comments...

On the mac, double-click and shift-click are the basic variants of the
mouse click used by applications.  It sounds hellish, but for
experienced users, it's not too bad.  Some examples:

   * double-click in a word processing application and a whole word 
     is selected.  If you then drag the mouse, the selection region
     grows by word boundaries.  

   * double-click in the Finder to open up a directory/disk or to run
     the appropriate application.

   * shift-click to extend selection ranges.  Go to the top of your
     word processing document and click.  Go to the bottom and
     shift-click.  The range in between will be selected.  

   * shift-click in the Finder and in drawing programs, to add items
     to your list of selected objects.  

These are the kinds of things I expected the other buttons to do.  For
example, in X windows (as you know) you can use one button to select
and another button to extend the selection, while a third button can
be used to paste the current selection.

From what you are telling me, the most obvious benefit of having two
mouse buttons on the Amiga is that:

   * the menubar can remain hidden until needed.

   * multiple menu selections can be made at once by holding down one
     button and clicking the other one.

   * paint programs have a special use for the menu button.

It sounds like all that would happen if the menu button were dropped
is that the menubar would have to be on the screen constantly,
multiple menu selections would be a thing of the past, and paint
programs would have to suffer.  While this would change your interface
significantly (and I'm sure you like things just the way they are),
from an outsider's point of view, it seems like the change wouldn't be
all that drastic. 

What I'm getting at is that there *are* significant differences
between the mac and the Amiga.  In most ways I prefer the mac, and in
some ways I covet the Amiga.  When I think about how multiple mouse
buttons come into play in defining the differences between the mac and
the Amiga, I think about it like this: how would the Amiga differ if
it had a single mouse button, and how would a mac differ if it had
multiple buttons which were used like the Amiga.  From what you say,
all it would change on the mac is that the menubar would stop hogging
screen real estate.  I was hoping it'd take care of *some* of the
shift-option-click business.

I do see that the vanishing menubar is nice for things like video.
You also mention something called PopUpMenu, and how it should come
standard.  I agree.  It seems to me that as long as you are going to
have a dedicated menu button, you should have popup menus.  Pulldown
menus were created so that you could use a menu with only one mouse
button. 

There is a PopUpMenu INIT for the mac, but you have to do something
like command-option-shift-click to pop the menu up.

-Sho
-- 
sho@physics.purdue.edu