Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
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From: rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Subject: Re:  De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Message-ID: <1991Jun30.015828.5393@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
Organization: The Internet
References: <14318@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1991Jun29.232917.28817@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <14332@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 91 01:58:28 GMT
Lines: 113

In article <14332@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU writes:
>In article <1991Jun29.232917.28817@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes:
>>In article <14318@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU writes:
>>>Weeell.  That's one opinion of course.  For the beginner user (which neither of
>>>us are) there really isn't enough visual clueing as to whether menus exist
>>>or not.  Witness, if you will, poor Joe user confused the first time he
>>>fires up dpaint and hits his right mouse button.
>>
>>   Is our society so illiterate that noone can RTFM anymore? I mean sheesh,
>>whenever I get a new stereo/vcr I read the manual so I know what its features
>
>You know, it's attitudes like these that restrict computers to such a small
>audience.  Personally, I think you should have stuck with your PC.  Shoot,
>why give the user any clue at all, keep him in a text screen.  Sheesh, indeed.

  (I don't, and havenever owned a PC., so there. :-p)

>Perhaps our society has BETTER THINGS TO DO than RTFM?

   Perhaps our society has better things to do than read? When 
software is distributed I think users should read the instruction manual.

>I'm not arguing the case that's it's easier to draw with two buttons for two
>pens, just that menus should be clued -- IE at the top of the window, OR
>you can use a SHIFT-RIGHT_BUTTON anywhere in the window, or something like 
>that.  In the best case -- YOU THE USER get to choose....

  As far as I know, lots of paint programs have selectable menu bars.
(Turn them on of off) Most of them have a paint toolbox at the top of the 
screen with menu bar. Ok, if your willing to justify screen real
estate I guess you could put a "click here for menus you dummy" at the top of
the screen.

>>>Also, there are some serious intuition-type conflicts that I'm not convinced
>>>PopUpMenu has solved.
>>[stating problem isn't simple]
>
>You are right, it is not easy.
>
>>Idea #1:
>>Idea #2:
>
>Neither is ideal, as you point out.
> 
>>  Sorry, I must disagree. This is _NOT_ a good thing for the A500/2000.
>
>Really, I'm not sure who you are disagreeing with, but it's not me.

  I'm disagreeing with the fact that Menus shouldn't lock rendering, on the
A500 locking is more efficient.

>>The Amiga's interface is responsive because of the special cased ways
>>icons/bobs/menus and outlines are handled. And it's only a minor nitpick.
>
>If your machine hangs, it is NOT a minor problem.  There are two possible
>ways out:
>
>   1:  Intuition gets rewritten with hooks to run custom menu code.
        Might make DIG harder.
>   2:  Use Workbench timeout approach.
       ???
>[By the way, even RJ thinks that his Gel code sucked...]

  I think the Gel code sucks too, it's too slow. It bogs down the entire
machine just running a simple Gel object.

>>  Actually, I think menus suck period. It takes to long to select a menu
>>item. Hotkeys and gadgets are better.
>
>Yeah, Ray, should have stuck with that PC.  I suppose you like the way those
>WP strips hang over your function keys, or have you memorized all 40 functions?

  Where do I ever said I own a PC or ever owned one? I think the Menu
paradigm sucks, there must be something better, like pop-up toolboxes/gadgets
or atleast pop-up menus are better than normal menus. I hate having to
move the mouse to the top of the screen to select a function!

>The idea with menus is rather simple -- they are out of the way when you don't
>want them, and they are on screen when you do want them.  The same cannot
>be said of gadgets (which are always there) or hotkeys (which are never
>on screen).

  But menus take mouse gymnastics to activate. 

>I tell you what, why don't you go use TECO for awhile.  If you're happy with
>that, I can't help you :), otherwise we can have a nice discussion about
>what "user interface" means.

  I use Emacs, do I win a prize?

 I'd be glad to discuss user-interfaces. I just thing the standard menus
that the Mac/Amiga use are cumbersome sometimes for something like a mouse.
A two button light-pen/touch screen would be much cooler. Touch the
titlebar, then touch a menu item. But using the mouse for heavy
duty menu work can be nerve racking sometimes. The WIMP interface
isn't the be-all of interfaces. I simply think something better, more
adaptable to a mouse can be worked out.

(Pop-up menus are a step in the right direction. I think pop-up menus
should be toggleable so that sometimes they stay on the screen when you
release the mousebutton and go away when you click the mouse button
again.)

>David Navas                                   navas@cory.berkeley.edu
>	2.0 :: "You can't have your cake and eat it too."
>Also try c186br@holden, c260-ay@ara and c184-ap@torus


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