[GRLUG] Ubuntu Oneiric

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Mon, 2011-10-31 at 09:26 -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> 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. 

Agree, for numerous reasons.  One being large screens where multiple
'active' windows is normal and productive.

> 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:

It can also be odd on a desktop with multiple displays.  Generally I
think it is just an odd construct.  I can't image how it is ever faster
or more productive than just tapping the meta-key.

> I'm not saying this makes putting widgets at screen edges worse than

The advantage of the screen edge, IMO, for certain widgets is simply
that they are out-of-the way.


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