Usability [was: Re: [PD-dev] Re: pure devil (fwd)]

Frank Barknecht fbar at footils.org
Mon Aug 15 19:41:44 CEST 2005


Hallo,
Mathieu Bouchard hat gesagt: // Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

> I suggested other things, like adding a different, more accessible 
> shortcut for Edit/Run toggling -- e.g. Escape or even CapsLock. The Ctrl+E 
> powerchord is more complex for the hand and doing too quick often leads to 
> Ctrl+W instead (been there done that).

Because my new laptop has this nasty "Fn" key where normally the
"Ctrl" key belongs, I have made CapsLock an additional Ctrl-key,
which I think is much more comfortable to use. Only problem is, that
at work we use Windows and instead of saving a Word document I now
SHOUT TOO MUCH IN MY TEXTS until I recognize my mistake ...

To those who want to try this at home: Apart from xmodmap tricks, you
can also use this in XF86Config/xorg.conf:

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
  Driver     "keyboard"
  # ...
  # Make CapsLock an additional Control
  Option     "XKbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps" 
EndSection

Regarding quicker and more ergonomic editing: I have seen people who
really have problems hitting inlets or outlets with the mouse pointer.
*Real* problems. One partial solution to this would be to allow more
ways to create connections. One way is the way I use in my msd-editor
to create mass/spring structures. It works like this (translated to Pd
editing): 

User selects two objects and then hits a keyboard shortcut like Ctrl-C
or a menu entry, which automatically connects the two objects' first
out/inlets. Also one-to-many-connections could be made very fast this
way.

However I didn't yet find a good way to make connecting other xlets
than the first ones easier. Maybe selecting xlets instead of selecting
object?

More ideas: 

Select many objects and use a menu entry: "Convert selection to
subpatch". Max has this now and it sounds like quite a cool idea.

Of course mouse driven editing of GUI objects' sizes etc. would be
great.

Macros: Some common way to record and replay often celebrated editing
actions into user defined macros would be very handy. 

More keyboard driven editing: In edit mode, press TAB to jump to the
next object and edit its contents. (What is "the next object"? I'd say
top-bottom, then left-right.)

Just my 2ct collection.

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                               _ ______footils.org__
             
          _ __latest track: "plak" @ http://footils.org/cms/show/44




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