Mice and Windows (was Re: Apple Challenges HP New Wave, MS-Windows)

[eric townsend]

This was the Newsgroups line of the old article.  Blech.
comp.sys.amiga,misc.legal,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.apple,comp.sys.atari.st,comp.sys.hp

Anyway...

In article <1885 at sugar.UUCP>, peter at sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
> In article <1120 at neoucom.UUCP>, wtm at neoucom.UUCP writes:
> > screen the window happens to be; this is sort of distracting (at
> > least distracting to me).  I'd rather just always click at the top
> > of the screen.  Trust me, it isn't really confusing.

> I like the Amiga as much as the next guy, but I think putting the menus at
> the top of the screen like the Mac's is the biggest single design flaw
> in the generally pretty good Intuition interface. When you have a seperate
> button for the menu there's no reason to tie the menu to any particular
> part of the screen. It should come up directly under the mouse pointer,
> the way it does in most, if not all, of the UNIX based workstations.

> -- Peter da Silva      `-_-'      ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
> -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter

One of the few things I like about the User Agent on the UNIX-PC is its
use of at least two of the three buttons...  B2 (I think it's called)
usually brings up the commands window for whatever application window is
currently running.  I say "usually" because very few people, AT&T included,
follow the design specs for using the mouse...  anyway...

I have no experience on "real" workstations, only dumb terminals hooked to
'frames, the 3b1, and a few micros, so this question may have an answer
obvious to others...

What progress has been made in designs utilizing mice with 3+ buttons?
I'd love to go thru and rewrite the UA on the 3b1 to use all 3 buttons
in a consistent manner...  ie: first button picks whatever the pointer
is on, second button calls up a list of commands to be used with whatever
window happens to be active, and third button could be special systems
functions -- something like the "W" icon at the top right of the 3b1
screen that is the gateway from a window to any other window.
Then there's the combinatorial commands: B1+B2, B1+B3 and B2+B3 for even
less used aspects or for the user to define..

Again, I'm still fresh (under a year) to UNIX and it's related ilk,
so maybe everybody else in the world is already doing this sort of thing...
-- 
Just another journalist with too many spare MIPS...
"The truth of an opinion is part of its utility." -- John Stuart Mill 
J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007