Xref: utzoo comp.misc:5650 comp.editors:594 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-lcc!lll-winken!uunet!steinmetz!crdgw1!crdgw1.ge.com!barnett From: barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.editors Subject: Re: UNIX needs a real text editor Message-ID: <69@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Date: 27 Mar 89 04:24:35 GMT References: <222@imspw6.UUCP> <252@torch.UUCP> <2112@mister-curious.sw.mcc.com> <237@usl-pc.usl.edu> <990@rpi.edu> Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com Reply-To: barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) Followup-To: comp.misc Organization: GE Corp. R & D, Schenectady, NY Lines: 40 In-reply-to: night@pawl.rpi.edu (Trip Martin) In article <990@rpi.edu>, night@pawl (Trip Martin) writes: >As for why the mouse is slower, I have to look at my hands when moving >to or from the mouse. Moving my attention away from the screen like >that slows me down. I also tend to overshoot with the mouse. It does >take a fair amount of dexterity to really become quick at using a mouse. >I suspect quite a few people have the same problems I do with mice. It doesn't really take dexterity, just practice. Just like a keyboard takes practice. I have never taken a lesson, but I do okay. Same with a mouse. For instance, if I have to move the cursor more than 20 lines, and to a different column, the mouse is the easiest way to do it. Especially when the sizes of the windows are always different heights, etc. >It seems to me that you probably have the dexterity to use a mouse >to its fullest. Other people like myself are not so lucky. I'm a >moderately fast typer, but my dexterity isn't all that great. Last I knew, Trip, you didn't have a workstation in front of you 8 hours a day. If you did, and you made the effort, you would develop the 'dexterity' you desire. Most mouse systems I am aware of are tunable, so you can set scaling factors (The faster you more, the farther the mouse travels.) The default might be uncomfortable for a novice, and may in fact be set for a intermediate user. I think the problem with most people is that they are so set on their ways that they had a hard time learning to use different tools. As an example, the people who wrote the mouse based front ends for GNUemacs (NeWS and SunView), don't really understand the secondary selection mechanism, because they don't use mice much. Textedit has a better mouse interface than does gnuemacs, which is a shame. I like emacs's power, and textedit's mouse interface. It really bugs me that I can exchange two pieces of text in any two windows by just pressing and releasing three keys on the keyboard, *except* when I am using emacs or vi. -- Bruce G. Barnett a.k.a. uunet!steinmetz!barnett,