Does anyone know of a user interface that brings the action to where your mouse is sitting. Instead of taking me off to the side somewhere and forcing me to move the mouse cursor to the question, let the question come to where my mouse cursor is. Don't force us users to waltz that mouse across our desks all day long.
That will become a big boost in productivity I think.
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On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 at 12:30:51PM -0700, Mel Seder wrote:
Does anyone know of a user interface that brings the action to where your mouse is sitting. Instead of taking me off to the side somewhere and forcing me to move the mouse cursor to the question, let the question come to where my mouse cursor is. Don't force us users to waltz that mouse across our desks all day long.
That will become a big boost in productivity I think.
Logitech's mouseware has an option to send the mouse pointer to new dalog boxes when they pop up. A few video drivers have options to send dialogs to the location of the mouse. I find both VERY annoying, since I might be about to click on something, and really would not want to answer a pop up dialog incorrectly. I do tend to answer most dialogs with the keyboard of course, since it's the fastest, most accurate way to do it, and involves no mouse movement. Programmers who don't use standard keyboard shortcuts, or make keyboard navigation difficult, should be forced to, ehm, use their own programs, without a mouse.
Lennart Sorensen
On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 at 12:30:51PM -0700, Mel Seder wrote:
Does anyone know of a user interface that brings the action to where your mouse is sitting. Instead of taking me off to the side somewhere and forcing me to move the mouse cursor to the question, let the question come to where my mouse cursor is. Don't force us users to waltz that mouse across our desks all day long.
That will become a big boost in productivity I think.
After reading some articles about interface design, I started placing all my mousable items along the top and right hand side of my screen (I'm right handed) since those are the areas that are easiest to get to with the flick of my wrist. I find that in order to do this inside apps, it's often necessary to run the configurator for the associated library's desktop environment.
On top of that, I set myself up a bunch of hotkeys for frequently used mouse actions so that I don't have to move my hands off the keyboard to get what I want (when I'd typing)
One of my nicer setups (that was pretty hardcore command line though) was just running fvwm, no applets, pager pages selected by the corresponding Ctrl-Shift-keypad# (as far as I'm concerned this should be a standard set of hotkeys) focus on mouseover, and each page filled with xterms of differing dimensions (or some with xterms dedicated to specific purposes). I also had a page with a browser and another where xmms had been slipped in, and one left empty for whatever-I-felt-like. Also, when using the xterms (most of the time) I just kept the mouse in the centre of the screen so i never had to move the mouse more than a couple of mm in order to move focus between windows.
Of course, at home, I use GNOME since my gf likes to use my machine from time to time, doesn't want to have to log in herself, and gets frustrated/intimidated by endless screens full of xterms.
On Fri, 21 Jun 2002, Kristofer Coward wrote:
...just running fvwm, no applets, pager pages selected by the corresponding Ctrl-Shift-keypad# (as far as I'm concerned this should be a standard set of hotkeys) focus on mouseover, and each page filled with xterms of differing dimensions (or some with xterms dedicated to specific purposes)... I just kept the mouse in the centre of the screen so i never had to move the mouse more than a couple of mm in order to move focus between windows.
This is pretty close to what I use operationally, but the differences may be of interest... Instead of using the keypad, I have Ctrl-, and Ctrl-. (think of them as Ctrl-< and Ctrl->) defined to move left and right, respectively, through the pages. On each page, the windows that I usually type into -- log windows and such don't count -- are stacked such that they all overlap one point, near the top and roughly centered. The mouse pointer just stays there. Ctrl-; (one of the home-position keys!) is defined to mean "push top window to bottom". Result: I can do full window navigation without moving my hands from the touch typist's home position on the keyboard. This is a huge win.
(Also, Ctrl-- scrolls an xterm back, Ctrl-= [think Ctrl-+] scrolls it forward, Ctrl-0 returns it to the bottom.)
Yes, I did a careful search for main-cluster keys that didn't have an existing Ctrl meaning. There are others I haven't used yet... I couldn't very well use the keypad, since I don't have one. (I use a BTC-5100 keyboard, less than 30cm wide, which has only the main cluster. It's amazing how much difference it makes not to have two square feet of your desktop eaten up by an enormous keyboard.)
Henry Spencer henry@spsystems.net
On Fri, 21 Jun 2002, Mel Seder wrote:
Does anyone know of a user interface that brings the action to where your mouse is sitting. Instead of taking me off to the side somewhere and forcing me to move the mouse cursor to the question, let the question come to where my mouse cursor is. Don't force us users to waltz that mouse across our desks all day long.
How is the system supposed to know what question to move to your mouse?
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 12:30:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Mel Seder melseder@yahoo.com Sender: fslc-bounce@fslc.usu.edu Reply-to: fslc@fslc.usu.edu
Does anyone know of a user interface that brings the action to where your mouse is sitting. Instead of taking me off to the side somewhere and forcing me to move the mouse cursor to the question, let the question come to where my mouse cursor is. Don't force us users to waltz that mouse across our desks all day long.
That will become a big boost in productivity I think.
Are you simply talking about modifying window manager preferences? If so, and you happen to be using Gnome+Sawfish, you can set this by:
Getting into sawfish window manager preferences:
On my machine, either the command 'gnomecc', or I can get to it in the menus (supplied by RedHat) via: Gnome Foot->Programs->Settings->Sawfish Window Manager->Placement
Then, under "Method of placing dialog windows" (not "Method of placing windows"), select "under-pointer" (instead of "best-fit", "first-fit", "centered", etc).
However, I think this should work for most window managers that allow you to customize them. Just look for a "windows/placement" option, try to find something referring to dialog windows. You might also want to select an option for "Ignore program-specified window placements", if available.
Elijah
On Fri, 21 Jun 2002, Mel Seder wrote:
Hmm...multiple lists - well I'll reply to all. Might bounce :)
Does anyone know of a user interface that brings the action to where your mouse is sitting. Instead of taking me off to the side somewhere
This really sounds like a traditional window manager. I still use fvwm2 as it is (imho) still a great interface. With the mouse point on the root window (background) I can make the following clicks:
left: Drop down menu of all my favourite apps. Multi-tiered and written from scratch (modified over years & years to be just right for me).
middle: All my current windows listed in a drop down menu. Move to the one I want & click on it. They are grouped by my virtual desktops also.
right: Some general fvwm2 functions. Largely ignored actually - I could probably better use the position.
By definition all of your functions are near your mouse pointer where ever it is (the nearest bit of root window visible).
The settings above are totally configurable. I've long felt that this structure was far superior to the "start" button of a popular OS or any of the user interfaces that have mimicked it. The structure of using the mouse pointer on the root window to invoke menus is common among window managers but seems to have dropped out of common use recently (I don't use Gnome or KDE default window managers much but I recall they didn't seemed to flow as well, at least imho). Please no window manager flame wars - just expressing an opinion :)
and forcing me to move the mouse cursor to the question, let the question come to where my mouse cursor is. Don't force us users to waltz that mouse across our desks all day long.
Indeed - it must contribute to RSI.
That will become a big boost in productivity I think.
I'm damn fast with my highly personalised UI :) Cheers, -Rob
-- Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert@timetraveller.org ICQ: 104781119 Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org) avon: up 14 days, 12:21, 0 users, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.00 "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah
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Elijah P Newren -
Evan Leibovitch -
Henry Spencer -
Kristofer Coward -
Lennart Sorensen -
Mel Seder -
Robert Brockway