[haiku-development] Re: Ctrl+Alt window management functionality

  • From: John Scipione <jscipione@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:19:21 -0500

On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 3:35 PM, Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx> wrote:
> John Scipione <jscipione@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>I removed it because I am trying to show what action will take place
>>via the mouse cursor only. Since this is a RMB action there isn't a
>>good way to indicate the action until you click. This is one of the
>>reasons I oppose RMB drags in the first place, they have poor
>>discoverability. The only reason to bring the border highlighting back
>>is to improve discoverability but it doesn't tell you too much since
>>it still won't indicate the RMB action, you just have to know it.
>
> Maybe you're using the word discoverability with a different meaning. To
> clarify: The main purpose of the border highlighting was not to let new
> users discover the feature (it doesn't do a particularly for job in this
> respect, besides due to having to press CTRL-CMD first the functionality is
> hidden anyway). I added it mainly to make the feature reasonably efficient.

I may have mistook this because the border highlighting is the only
way that I knew anything was different about ctrl+alt at all. Now that
the mouse cursor updates the border highlighting becomes a confusing
distraction. If we are going to reintroduce this we need a better UI
to express it than what we've previously had.

> Especially when the window isn't that large the sectors get relatively small
> and the highlighting helps with aiming. Without it you have to make sure you
> move the mouse very clearly into the desired sector (i.e. very close to the
> border or the corner) to avoid risking initiating the wrong action. That
> slows the whole thing down considerably.

I feel that we don't need it, it's overkill. There is enough slop that
showing the regions is not necessary. If there was a clear way to show
it I'd be all for it but so-far I haven't heard one. I really don't
want to confuse people.

> An improved indication could e.g. draw a little mouse in the center of the
> window with the right button highlighted and around it the resize sectors,
> with the active one highlighted. That would improve both discoverability and
> aesthetics and maybe even efficiency (due to the indicators being larger and
> easier to see).

That is an interesting idea... certainly it is creative UI and I'd
have to think about it. It is better UI than border highlighting at
least. At this moment I don't know how comfortable I am with the idea
though. Firstly we'd need to change the picture to the LMB is you are
left-handed, maybe there is a setting to detect that?

The idea is quite novel, do you think that this kind of UI concept
sets a good example for how we'd like 3rd party software to behave on
Haiku? I guess my main concern is that we shouldn't be too novel in
the base system inventing new UI paradigms; instead we should take a
conservative approach. Let 3rd parties create novel new UI concepts,
in the base system we should stick to the fundamentals.

>>What we really need is a key combo that displays the resize arrows
>>before you click.
>
> I disagree with the "really need" part. Regular mice have at least two
> buttons and I don't see why we shouldn't make use of the secondary. As I
> wrote before, I wouldn't mind a modifier+LMB to emulate the RMB, but I would
> use the RMB in the first place.

Yes but the secondary button is normally used for context menus, this
is a very special case. I don't want Haiku to go down the same path
that some X window managers have gone down inventing new UI paradigms
without taking into account the mental model of the user. We need to
be very careful before proceeding with these kinds of changes as we're
on shaky foundation here UI-wise.

Thanks for listening.

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