Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:46292 comp.sys.mac:44944 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: User interface(was Re: Xerox sues Apple!!!) Message-ID: <9124@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 22 Dec 89 01:37:28 GMT References: <6767@tank.uchicago.edu> <1989Dec17.112127.27333@me.toronto.edu> <14960@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <1989Dec17.223025.6618@me.toronto.edu> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 67 In article robin@niksula.hut.fi (Jarto Tarpio) writes: >In article <5828@internal.Apple.COM> casseres@apple.com (David Casseres) writes: > In article jacobs@cs.utah.edu > (Steven R. Jacobs) writes: > > Menus and mice are great when you are first learning to use a system, but > > they get in the way of experienced users. > Sorry, but this is an absurd statement. There are many thousands of > experienced users who are very happy with the Mac interface. There are many experienced users happy with the MS-DOS, Lotus 1-2-3, and Wordperfect 4.0 user intefaces. That does not have thing one to do with the quality of those interfaces in many cases, it simply means that thay may have never had the choice or exposure to something better. To pick a relatively neutral ground, I'm a rather heavy user of Mentor software on an Apollo computer. The software can be completely used via a decent GUI with pop-up and pulldown menus (eg, in many cases faster than the Mac's, since you don't have to move the mouse to get the menus you use the most), and it can also be driven with a command language and keyboard. Everyone who first leans the system uses the mouse interface exclusively, since you can lean it in a few hours. However, most of the power users use the keyboard for many things. It's just plain faster for invoking operations that aren't inherently mouse based. I'd use a different tool if I had to enter nets by specifying numeric coordinates; there is and always will be a place for some kind of pointing device. But a keyboard is also very useful for entering commands, and I've found in using some rather complex programs that do it both ways, a full command language is better than single-character equivalents for mouse commands if you have enough of a program to need the command language. Just like the PC user who may have never used a mouse driven program, the Mac user can't begin to appreciate how much better some of their work can be done by command language without experiencing it first hand. > Not either-or. Both simultaneously ! Well, that is exactly what you get in the Mentor software. > SOMEBODY wants the mouse whole lot! Most any program will be easier to learn if it has a mouse driven interface. That interface is basically a command sheet (like the one that comes with Wordperfect) that the computer understands directly. Of course users want it. If both interfaces are offered, though, power users will invariably start using at least some of the command language, if it's available. Just what actually happens with the Mentor software and the Amiga system software (though few Amiga applications actually offer both). > > Sure, lots of applications will give you a choice in many commands, but > > this is not part of the standard interface -- you can't even start up > > the application without using the mouse. This is a bug, not a feature. > No, friend, this is a feature that you don't like. You can't claim to favor a user interface that offers both options, then claim that removing one option is actually a feature. I don't think it's a bug either, rather, a design flaw. Unfortunately, bugs can usually be fixed, design flaws often can't. >* Jarto Tarpio * robin@niksula.hut.fi * Helsinki * Place * -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Too much of everything is just enough