[GRLUG] Ubuntu Oneiric

[Mike Williams]

On 10/31/2011 05:57 PM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> 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 agree as well. My Commodore Amiga, years ago, had menus at the top of 
the window, but it made more sense then. Screens were smaller than what 
we have today, and there were technological limitations in 1990 that 
don't apply 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:
> 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.
Is it possible, and/or are there any desktop interfaces that implement, 
to have a mouse button pull up the File, Edit, Etc menus right where you 
are? A lot of systems now have mice with far more than 2 buttons, and 
many of them don't get used. How about at least an option for the 
buttons being, roughly, select/drag, context or mini menu, global menu? 
It seems to me this would give you the space savings of Unity's method 
without requiring a large mouse move to get to the menus.
>> 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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