[squeak-dev] Help pages need your help

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Fri Dec 27 23:14:16 UTC 2019



> On 2019-12-27, at 2:52 PM, John-Reed Maffeo <jrmaffeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I don't remember when and never knew why the "Swap Mouse Buttons" preference was enabled by default,


It was quite a long time ago and almost certainly done by Andreas to match what Windows typically does. Remember that waaay back Windows normally expected a two-button mouse (just to be awkward, like always) and so a lot of people felt more comfortable with left->select, right->menu. Because of that the halo had to be done with a cmd/alt/opt/windoze/meta/whatever key-right-button combo. Some time around then Mac GUI sort of drifted into using left->select, right->menu, middle->just be a scrolley-thing. Then it just got more and more confusing.

I've committed (yesterday) some changes to the inbox for several  help packages that are an attempt to clean up the descriptions as well as explaining a few more points of the UI. There's a *lot* more that could be done, including probably breaking up the UI descriptions into separate pages and adding illustrations. 

One of the things you learn when trying to describe stuff is that too much of it is far too complex. Which is why I keep trying to teach people to write a user manual first - so you work out what you're trying to do and actually do that instead of just a random pile of what seemed cool at the time. After all, if you can't explain it so people can use it, what on earth is the use in writing it?

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Useful random insult:- Hid behind the door when they passed out brains.




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