[GRLUG] Ubuntu Oneiric

[Michael Mol]

On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 10:54 PM, Don Ellis <don.ellis at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 10:20 PM, Mike Williams <knightperson at zuzax.com> wrote:
> For the origin of having the menu at top of screen rather than top of
> window, you can see Tog On Interface by Bruce Tognazzini, 1992. The
> idea is that, since your logical workspace could be up to 32 feet tall
> (maybe more now), you can slam the mouse to the top of the screen much
> faster and with less precision needed than you can find the top of the
> current window, especially with mouse acceleration. With MacOS 7.6, (I
> think that's the correct version) you could do just about anything
> with the keyboard and mostly ignore the mouse. Still, that part of the
> interface design can be helpful when mousing.

IMO, defining a mouse interface like that was right twenty years ago,
perhaps ten, but it's the wrong direction today. I can certainly see
the benefit of being able to slam the mouse cursor to a corner as an
easy way to hit a widget's hit box (I used to do it all the time to
get to the Start button on XP, and the launcher icon in GNOME), but
that behavior depends on having an input device that operates in
relative coordinates, and we're seeing a shift toward absolute
coordinates:

* Touchscreen interfaces operate in absolute coordinates.
* Pen-input devices and screens operate in absolute coordinates.
(Except where you have a second, relative-mode-emulating pen, such as
come(came?) with WACOM tablets)
* Server-side behavior for remote access systems like VNC and VM
'console' interfaces operate in absolute coordinates.

With a relative-coordinate device, you just keep going "up" or "over"
until you get to where you want. With absolute-coordinate devices, you
have to direct the device to the exact position where you want the
input event to occur.

In a scenario like these, VMs and VNC windows are annoying in their
own way, if you don't have them fill your screen. No longer can you
shove the mouse all the way to the corner, or to the top of the
screen, as a shortcut, you have to direct your local input device to
the exact position of the menu bar or start button. Numerous times,
I've accidentally sent a VNC client window to the background by
accidentally clicking on a different background window.

I'm not saying this makes putting widgets at screen edges worse than
not, but absolute-coordinate devices are trending in, and so betting
on features of relative-coordinate input devices is the wrong
direction to go right now.

-- 
:wq

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