[squeak-dev] Mouse Move on a Touch Screen ??

Jim Rosenberg jr at amanue.com
Sun Jan 11 23:16:52 UTC 2009


I'm still getting used to my first touch-screen device -- a Nokia N810 
(thank you Derek O'Connell!!) I have to say that I am still in a state of 
culture shock. After having spent more than 20 years doing various kinds of 
arcane things with mouseOvers, I suddenly find myself with a machine in 
which it seems not to be possible to move the mouse without the mouse being 
"down". Squeak (I'm using 3.8) doesn't seem to be adapted for this. I'm not 
finding any preference that will e.g. let me move the mouse with the arrow 
keys. Is there a way to do this?

There seems to be a deep assumption in a lot of GUI design that when you 
put the mouse down, you intended to do this, but just moving the mouse you 
may not be intending to move it to where it is if the mouse button never 
went down. Maybe you're just "traveling" somewhere and haven't finished. 
Mouse down is a kind of "commitment", that mouse move is not. So, requiring 
the mouse to be down in order to move it breaks all kinds of deeply 
embedded GUI design decisions.

What are people's thoughts on how to move the mouse on a touch screen 
without "touching down" somewhere?



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