creat 1278

(Roland Hutchinson) writes:

It seems to be an article of faith, among many software developers as well as lusers, that rodents are inherently superior for everything.

"Are you all thumbs? Then this is the device for you!"

"Terrific! 'Cuz then I don't have to learn anything!"

(Well, they already have hand-eye co-ordination from playing electronic games. Maybe the appeal of these things is that you can work them much like a Nintendo.)

In other words, it's all for the good of The Economy. All hail! rest to the infidels!

I don't think many of us here have that problem. What irritates us is the belief that pointing is more efficient and faster than typing for ALL tasks -- and the user perceives it as being faster even as he struggles to point here, click there... oops, the mouse moved and I clicked the wrong thing but I can recover that document in only a couple of hours... but the screens are SOOOOO pretty...

I don't think anyone knows how to design good layouts in anything anymore. The remote controls which are cluttering our house bury commonly-used buttons in arrays of obscure and unrelated buttons, and until I memorize their arbitrary locations, I have to turn on a bright light and stare at the remote control until I manage to find the button I'm looking for. There is no excuse for this, aside from the fact that manufacturers seem to be getting away with not laying out the bucks to hire competent designers. Furthermore, they're removing so many controls from the device itself that it's practically unusable without the remote control. I hope there's a special circle in Hell reserved for these fiends.

No matter how few extra keys there are on your keyboard, you must still lift your hand from its home position and move it to wherever the rodent sits - and then move your hand back again afterwards. Those of us who are send touch typists can enter a lot of data in that length of time. I realize that we are in the minority (and therefore by our perverted rules of democracy don't count), but it means that the increasing amount of software that mandates the use of a pointing device leaves us feeling crippled - and therefore resentful.

At least the "eraser tip" pointing devices buried in the middle of the keyboard don't require you to move your hands. That's often enough to make up for their awkwardness compared to a mouse. Not that mice are perfect - although they'll be much better once Microsoft "invents" the mouse accelerator that I've had running on my Amigas for almost 20 years.

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