Re: mouse bindings (formerly gmc rant)

[richardt rice edu]

In message <14247.60908.782979.709885@chardonnay.ajk.tele.fi>
 Tomi.Ollila@tfi.net writes:
> Tuesday Aug 3 19:08:35 -0500 1999 Richard C. Thrapp <richardt@rice.edu> 
wrote:
> > On Tue, 3 Aug 1999, James M. Cape wrote:
> 
> /* lotsa stuff deleted */
> 
> > Agreed... But we shouldn't use lmb for dragging, too..
> 
> 
> .. but... window damager is usually configured to do drag when lmb is
> pressed over window titlebar and user moves mouse.
> 
> IMHO the bahaviour shoud be as consistend as possible.
> 
> One possibility would be to use lmb for dragging also, but put a few pixels
> treshold (configurable) before start dragging. Also a feature `drag undo'
> could be implemented...
> 
> Personally, everything suits me (still using a patched vtwm w/ my GNOME
> desktop). But the different bahaviour w/ other desktops might not be a
> good idea (if any).
> 
> Tomi

Well, I have fvwm configured for middle button drag... Perhaps mouse binding 
rules (or at least suggestions) should be added to the wm specs?
What we have now is NOT consistent, and we have access to both specs and 
code that can MAKE it consistent!  Making one mouse button do more than one 
completely different action when more buttons are available is silly and it 
makes it harder to use a mouse (for the inexperienced).  Using different 
buttons for similar tasks in different cases -- that's just insane.

Gnome has already decided that the middle button means drag (panel, gmc 
(although gmc uses lmb for primary drag?! (I hope this changes)).  We should 
have some gnome call (possibly KDE compatible, or just placing the data in 
X atoms) to determine default mouse bindings for common actions.  This allows 
developers to NOT worry about their users having 1 and 2 button mice, as gnome 
will automatically change the bindings to allow such things.

At the very least, we should adopt a standard convention and stick with it.  I 
post this to the wm-spec list mainly because Tomi mentioned it... and dealing 
with windows is a major part of X.  Whatever convention is chosen, it will 
need to be listed at least as a recommendation in the wm spec.

-- Richard Thrapp
richardt@rice.edu