On Mon, 2002-11-18 at 15:45, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> On 16 Nov 2002, Tommi Komulainen wrote:
>
> > I had considered all but the last point, I'll try to explain better why
> > I think they shouldn't cause any serious trouble. First of all, we can
> > make pasting by middle-button work on mouse down; you only paste on text
> > entries so it's probably reasonable to do pasting instead of gestures
> > there.
>
> Unfortunately this is not true. I regularly select an URL and middle-paste
> it into a non-textarea part of the browser window, and the browser will
> load that URL for me.
I know, but I'd argue it's not pasting. It's close, but not quite the
same as pasting. I can't really remember seeing any other program than
mozilla/galeon to behave in such a way. Granted, it's quite convenient,
but still not pasting :)
I think it's also been suggested that this 'open pasted URL'
functionality is removed and that you'd middle-click the 'New' button in
the toolbar to achieve the same thing.
> Granted, but there's still no indication that a _gesture_ is about to
> begin. If I didn't know gestures, the first thing I would think of when
> my pointer changed to a pencil is that I could draw on the screen or
> something. The difference with starting a drag by accident is that:
Hmm, true, there could be some better icon for the pointer. I don't
really pay attention to it anymore, only that it changes :-/
> 1. Drag and drop will only be performed when you drag something to a
> drop-sensitive area. When performing a gesture, the area around the point
> where it was started, is always sensitive.
I think in many cases the drop sensitive area is also around the drag
starting point. I'm not sure though, it's just a fuzzy feeling.
> 2. An accidentally performed gesture can have more drastic consequences
> than an accidentally performed drag: it can close the window (dataloss),
> load the previous page,etc.
That is true, but I'm not entirely convinced it's that bad. Even if I
know the gesture for closing the tab (down-right) I occasionally manage
to perform it wrong. I would think that performing it by accident has
about the same probability than hitting Alt-F C. Back/Forward/New
tab/New window (gestures in only one direction) are much easier, but
they're not as destructive as you can always get back very easily.
> An 'Enable gestures' checkbox in the Preferences probably won't hurt much.
> Detailed configuration of gestures belongs with the power-user stuff.
Probably not, provided that there's an existing page suitable for the
checkbox. Well, actually it's a bit more complicated than that.
There's six different functions you can use the middle mouse button for
(README.ExtraPrefs,) all of which I believe can be found in other
browsers:
0 (Bookmarks menu), // not yet implemented
1 (Paste url),
2 (Go back),
3 (Gestures)
4 (Automatic scroll)
5 (Manual scroll, like ggv)
Just to make things worse, some of the above would really be more
consistent when used in combination, gestures and paste url for
example. If there were some common ground for how to use the middle
mouse button when pasting text isn't suitable, it would make it easier
to at least choose a sensible default.
I guess it looks like gestures are just too controversial to be enabled
by default after all. Thanks for the feedback. I was expecting a bit
more, though, I didn't know you were this unanimous ;) Oh well...
--
Tommi Komulainen tommi komulainen iki fi
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