[DISCUSS] Double-click should be "blue click"

Andreas Raab andreas.raab at gmx.de
Sat Jan 11 19:17:26 UTC 2003


Doug,

I'm going to take this backwards since it's easier for me to answer that
way:

> But...double-click for halos?  I think it's a great idea.

I think not. Just consider a morph which reacts to mouse down. When you
click on it, the system would have to delay the interaction since it
does not know if that first mouse down is part of a double click or not.
If you give it a timeout value of something like 200msecs then *EVERY*
click has to be delayed by 200 millisecs which makes for a painfully
slow feel of interaction.

The current CMD-click is what I would call a "deliberately obscure"
meta-gesture which allows you to get a halo on any object without
interfering with the "primary" interaction this object defines. E.g.,
taking the above the system can just check if the user pressed the CMD
key and then pop up a halo or otherwise dispatch the mouse down event.
Also, double clicks are used in various places so the CMD-click gives
you a way of actually getting to the halo without interfering with the
"primary double click behavior". 

> So mouse mapping could, at the very least,
> be rolled together and made more understandable
> to the average user.

That is certainly true from the POV of a new user. On the other hand,
the mapping preferences in the Windows VM outdate the preferences in the
image by roughly five years (maybe even longer - one of the first things
I did was to allow swapping right and middle button). I simply didn't
have the time to review these settings and see if the prefs really
subsume the relevant settings in the VM (in which case they should be
removed in due time).

> Double-click is noticeably absent from the Squeak UI --
> does double-clicking postdate the development of Smalltalk?
> Is that why it's absent?

It isn't absent - there are various places in which it is used (text
selection, the blue file list etc). On the other hand, where would you
_expect_ it?! Double-clicking is only useful in a context where you need
multiple ways of interacting with the same object (and yes, some people
have advocated "triple clicks" - and they are probably no better than
double-clicks if it comes to teaching people to hit that mouse button
really fast without moving the mouse too far). Out of my head I can't
think of many places where this would be overly useful - if we'd go with
your halo example I would even claim that the "correct" interaction
would be that a single click adds a halo to some object and a
double-click "opens" it - which could mean to open a viewer or somesuch.
But it seems to me that this would be incredibly awkward if you actually
want to _press_ a button, don't you?! ;-)

Cheers,
  - Andreas

-----Original Message-----
From: squeak-dev-admin at lists.squeakfoundation.org
[mailto:squeak-dev-admin at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Doug
Clapp
Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2003 7:47 PM
To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
Subject: [DISCUSS] Double-click should be "blue click"


First, thanks to Ned for helping me get my wheel mouse buttons sorta
inline.  (I like the "left-handed" button setup, which can't be done
simply by using Prefs.)  My wheel-click still isn't "Blue button," which
I'd like, but...the larger issue is this:

Isn't it time we sent the 3-button mouse idea to the dustbin?

Although I'll grant that Mac Squeakers are single buttoners, most of the
computing world today uses two-button mice (or wheel mice).

Why not make double-click mean "blue button click"?  Or, at the very
least, allow a double-click to mean either red, yellow or blue, at the
user's option?  Double-click is noticeably absent from the Squeak UI --
does double-clicking postdate the development of Smalltalk?  Is that why
it's absent?

As I noodled around tying to fix my own settings, I found "swap buttons"
in Prefs and also the VM "Mouse Mappings" 1 or 3 button settings.
Oddly, Mouse Mappings lets you choose 1 or 3 or neither or both or any
other combination.  And those settings determine how the Prefs "swap
button" item works. Below that, in the source, lots of bit-twiddling
and, under all, a primitive.

So mouse mapping could, at the very least, be rolled together and made
more understandable to the average user.

If I were less of a Newbie, I'd astound you all with my programming
prowness and do it myself.  Maybe next week (year? :-)

But...double-click for halos?  I think it's a great idea.

regards,

doug




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