From: Stephen Kellett Date: 2005-04-02T07:15:08+09:00 Subject: Re: Respect and Disappointment In message <5630944605040112394bc647a8@mail.gmail.com>, Douglas Livingstone writes >Then you might like to try Apple's no-button mouse, you could use the >palm of your hand instead of your fingers. Never heard of it. Sounds like worth looking at. >Do you really believe this? Shipping a component where half of it is >turned off by default? No. I'd rather both were enabled. What I suggested is a compromise to satisfy the needs of those that think a single button mouse is better. >I'm not sure that the right mouse button is as fundamental as you say >it is. It isn't needed for web development. And web development accounts for how much of world software development? Not much. Measured in single digits percent wise I'd guess. Probably less than 1%. The media give web development lots of hits, but from the feedback I see from people downloading the software we write for a different company very few people are doing web stuff. The idea that the rising companies are web companies (as promoted by DHH) makes me smile. Its just not true, Google excepted. Google technologies are application all over the place, not just the web. There are so many companies doing really smart stuff that just don't get the general attention, especially if you only look around inside the Ruby goldfish bowl (*). I monitor many different languages and fora, participating in very few threads. Where is the real development? In house, and embedded. All that said, the bias towards web in the Ruby community seems higher though. >There isn't much need for >the right mouse button in word procesing and other office >applications. Funny, I find myself using the context menu in just about every app I use. >From watching non-developers, the toolbars are used much >more than context menus. Developers OTOH tend to use keyboard >shortcuts,sitedtepping the mouse completly. Depends, I've seen, to my amazement developers go out of their way to use a mouse to select select which could have been done by shift, ctrl-> (select a word), Ctrl-C. Three clicks versus a whole complicated gesture. Others are the opposite, killing all toolbars and fully keyboard only. I'm a compromise, but like context menus. I get the menu, but without the hassle of moving the cursor away from the source of interest. But if you are manipulating data in grids, trees and you want context sensitive choices about what you have selected, a context menu is the fastest possible choice, the menu is posted with the same mouse click as the click that selects the item. >How about graphic design? Absolutely. >Applications like Photoshop need much more than two buttons 2 buttons is enough. If you want more thats fine - tends to be user specific. In 15 years of using GUIs on 7 Unix platforms, Linux, VMS and 7 versions of Windows spanning the development of embedded systems, geographical information systems, CAD systems, multimedia authoring platforms, web browser development and software tool development I have yet to see a use for a 3rd button on a mouse, although we did try really hard to find one for the GIS application that ran on VMS and the 7 Unix platforms (because we actually had 3 button mice shipped as standard equipment, so we tried to make use of them). The customers typically wanted the third button set aside for themselves to customize. Stephen (*) That is not an insult. Each language community has a tendency to live in its own bubble/goldfish bowl. -- Stephen Kellett Object Media Limited http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk RSI Information: http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/rsi.html