Re: fundamentals of the gnome user interface

["Andrew S. Townley" <atownley informix com>]

>
>Begin forwarded message:
>From: "Wesley Felter" <wesf@cs.utexas.edu>
>
>[snip]
>
>But that brings up a good point: Some GNOME users either will not have a
>multi-button mouse (e.g. Apple hardware) or will not understand (and
>possibly not wish to understand) the difference between the mouse buttons.
>Therefore every GNOME app MUST be operable using only one mouse button. (By
>"operable" I mean that the user should have access to every feature of the
>application.) Somebody (Nils?) write this down, quick!
>

Actually, I think this is kinda already addressed (perhaps indirectly) by  
the comment that the user should be able to use the keyboard to access all of  
the application's functionality.  You're point about the mouse buttons is  
also definately valid.  This is also even more of a problem when "chords" are  
required to perform certain operations.  They're great; they're efficient;  
they're not available on every system.

Another, somewhat tangentially-related item is that the applications should  
do nothing to prevent the user from swapping the mouse buttons.  Now I  
haven't actually delved deep enough into the GTK+ code yet to notice, but  
there should be symbolic constants for the mouse buttons so that the user has  
the ability to swap them--moreso for left-handers with a two-button mouse  
than a three-button mouse, but hey, who knows?  Also along these lines, maybe  
it would make sense to provide a way to disable/enable context menus from  
the "alternate" mouse button.  NEXTSTEP's default configuration has both of  
the mouse buttons performing the same task.  You then can enable the X-style  
application menus and/or context menus from the user preferences.  Not that  
I'm saying that NeXT's (now Apple's) approach should be adopted, but it is  
something to think about which may make it easier for a certain type of user  
to get around in GNOME.

ast

>Wesley Felter - wesf@cs.utexas.edu
>"Maybe I should put a bucket over my head and a marshmallow in each
>ear...and you can go your way, and I can go my way" -- Ani DiFranco, "Fuel"
>
>
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