Applications in next Ubuntu

[Moof]

Eric Dunbar wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:48:06 +0000, David Marsh wrote:
>>Eric Dunbar wrote in gmane.linux.ubuntu.sounder

>>>>It's a shame nobody (bar the MagicMenu hack for the Amiga) implemented
>>>>the idea of having *all* menus pop-up under the mouse for ease of use.
>>>
>>>Which is probably why Amiga died a quick death ;-).
>>
>>Hrrmph. I did say it was an optional hack!
>>And it was bloody neat: you hardly had to move the mouse at all, it
>>definitely sped up my computer usage.
>>
>>(In fact, iirc, it might even have been possible to click to bring up
>>the menu and then cursor through them with the keyboard, even quicker)
> 
> 
> <Shudder> The GIMP model of GUI-design. So fundamentally flawed that
> there's a reason only The GIMP implements it and desperately needs to
> ditch it! Again, I must qualify that: It's a very inefficient model
> for most people (partly because we don't usually use it, but mostly
> because it's not very usable), but that doesn't mean it should
> disappear entirely from The GIMP.

Actually, this paradigm surfaced into the mainstream with RISC OS on the
Acorn Archimedes back in, ooh, 1986/87. The mouses (mice?) had three
buttons, and a middle click brought up the menu appropriate to the window
the mouse was hovering over, and it was even contextual in certain
applications. I seem to recall middle clicking over text in Impression (a
truly magnificent DTP programme given that it had such a small userbase)
gave me a different menu structure to middle clickng over blank areas in the
page.

I can't remember what right click was used for. I have vague recollections
that it may have been "undo" but I suspect if was configuarble depending on
the programme. I still have friends who use RISC OS, so I'll try and
rememebr to ask them. Acorn no longer make PCs, and seem to have been
subsumed into ARM, but the 1996 StrongARM RISC PC, which was their last
major Personal Computer and could even have a 486 or pentium plugged into a
riser card to run windows on it, is still a sturdy little machine ten years
down the line and continues working well.

>From what I remember at the time, I did find the middle-click menu system
quite intuitive, and missed its simplicity and ease of use when I proceeded
to move on to Windows 3.0 at home. Even my eventual forays into Macs a year
or two later (I started serious mac work on a IIfx with system 7, but there
were 128's lying around that lab which I also had to use with system 6) gave
me no joy, and I pined for the simplicity, ease of use, and, above all,
speed of RISC OS.

Having used it recently in GIMP, I agree. it sucks. but that's only cos I'm
now used to the idea that menus should be on a menu bar, and I really would
rather not have to break a paradigm common to all my computing experiences
since 1993 or thereabouts. I find myself looking for a menu then realising I
click to get there.

Moof - ah, memories
-- 
Giles Antonio Radford - <moof at metamoof.net>
Website down, but take a peek at http://del.icio.us/moof/
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale / Homme petit d'homme petit, à
degrés de bègues folles / Anal deux qui noeuds ours, anal deux qui noeuds
s'y mènent / Coup d'un poux tome petit tout guetteur à gaine - Who was badly
hurt?