[PD] left mouse click abuse

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Sun Jan 4 19:32:35 CET 2009


On Sun, 4 Jan 2009, Frank Barknecht wrote:

> Here's Chun and Matju's pd~conv paper: "Keyboard-only Interface For Pure
> Data" http://artengine.ca/~catalogue-pd/18-Lee-Bouchard.pdf
> In general I think, Pd should not try to outsmart the user. Finding the
> most "stupid" solutions to problems has been a good guideline in the
> past IMO.

Exactly, that's why dd used Ctrl+6 for doing what Ctrl+1 does but with an 
auto-connection. However, it doesn't extend to messageboxes. This could be 
extended either by Ctrl+7 for messagebox if we just want to fill most of 
the remaining hole, or switch to Ctrl+Shift+1/2/3/4/5 if we want to fill 
more of the hole and can handle the keyboard layout, or have a hotkey for 
toggling a "Auto-Connect Mode".

> This transfers the obligation to be smart from the program to the user, 
> who in general is smarter than software anyway. Personally I don't like 
> software that tries to be smarter than me, that's why I don't run OS-X 
> or Windows. ;)

Software that second-guesses the user cause the user to NEED to 
third-guess the software... especially if the rules are undocumented, or 
too complex to remember, and/or keep changing from version to version, or 
in the worst case, depend much on the history of user interaction. I mean, 
a menu section for "5 last documents loaded" is fine, but normal 
users would go nuts if menus kept on sorting their items in decreasing 
frequency of use. ;)

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| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801, Montréal, Québec


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