Re: Improvements to dselect

[Jim Van Zandt <jrv@vanzandt.mv.com>]

Nick Lichtmaier <nick@feedback.com.ar>  writes:
>On Sat, 22 Feb 1997, Jim Van Zandt wrote:
>>    Left/right keys in the lower sections cycle through the
>>    information displayed ('i').
>> No, I think left/right should scroll left or right.
>
> Why? There's nothing at the right or the left in the lower section. I
>think that using the arrows to cycle the info windows would be
>intuitive...

If the text extends clear to the edge of the window, then I think it
intuitive to try the left/right cursor keys to see more.  If the text
*does* not extend to the edge, then I would *not* expect the
left/right cursor keys to show me more (and IMHO assigning any
function to the left/right keys would be mistake).  I would be more
likely to try the up/down or pgup/pgdn keys.

Good interface design lets the user build up a mental model of the
application.  Assigning the left/right cursor keys to the "info cycle"
function requires him to picture a series of linked pages extending
to the left and right of what he sees in his window.  There is nothing
inherently wrong with this, but in the Motif and Windows model the
"next" page is always "down" rather than "right".

In a GUI, one can also display a dialog box with "tabs" which can be
clicked on to select alternate pages.  One could do the same thing
with keystrokes, but there I would expect the choices to be explicitly
shown -- maybe with a Lotus-style menu bar with keyboard shortcuts
indicated by highlighted letters.

(Incidently, I used dselect quite a while before I discovered the 'i'
command.)

                           - Jim Van Zandt


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