Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:45991 comp.sys.ibm.pc:40194 comp.sys.mac:44541 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!apple.com!casseres From: casseres@apple.com (David Casseres) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: User interface(was Re: Xerox sues Apple!!!) Message-ID: <5828@internal.Apple.COM> Date: 18 Dec 89 17:29:50 GMT Sender: usenet@Apple.COM Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. Lines: 50 References:<6767@tank.uchicago.edu> <1989Dec17.112127.27333@me.toronto.edu> <14960@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <1989Dec17.223025.6618@me.toronto.edu> 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. > ...An ideal system should > allow the user to use _either_ the mouse or the keyboard, based on the > preference of the user. This may be so, but the expense of developing two user interfaces for one system would be rather high. The real benefit of a type-in user interface comes in being able to write a script of many commands to be executed as a batch, and in applications where this makes sense, the application developers have provided macro facilities that serve the purpose. For programmers, Apple's own MPW offers a highly customizable interface that give you just about as much type-in as you want, or as little. There is no real need to provide something as specialized as a type-in interface at the system level, forcing everyone to pay for it. > Neither the Mac nor the PC are even close to > ideal in this regard. Apple had a great opportunity to make an ideal > system with the Mac, but they blew it by forcing the mouse on everyone. There is nothing in the Mac that forces any application to use the mouse. In the early days of the Mac, quite a few developers did quick ports of their PC applications, with type-in interfaces, to the Mac. Guess what? Nobody would buy them. SOMEBODY wants the mouse whole lot! > 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. > If keyboards are so evil, then > why do so many Mac applications have keystroke "shortcuts" for most > of their commands? Because that is a standard part of the Mac user interface. > Again, giving the user a _choice_ is a better solution. Talk to the application developers. David Casseres Exclaimer: Hey!