Re: Improvements to dselect
On Sun, 23 Feb 1997, Jim Van Zandt wrote:
> 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
Ok, but:
1) This is a mouseless interface. GUI are oriented to mouse interaction,
and often key-shorcuts are not very intuitive.
2) My proposal was aimed to reduce the set of keys needed to use dselect,
and to need very few modifications to the code. I still think that
left/right can perfectly cycle through `pages' of the info screens.
Someone suggest a lynx-like interface. I think that that would be useful
with a more deeply nested section scheme, and implies important
modifications to dselect code. I have posted a suggestion about a
`Subsection:' field, but it seems that nobody liked it. =) .... Something
like...
Secion: devel
Subsection: compilers
Nicolás Lichtmaier.-
nick@feedback.com.ar
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