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Keymap note, was "Re: My GWorkspace feature request"


From: Ian Jones
Subject: Keymap note, was "Re: My GWorkspace feature request"
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 15:00:13 +0000

Hi all,

On 2003-06-19 12:51:43 +0000 Jeff Teunissen <deek@d2dc.net> wrote:

Enrico Sersale wrote:

On 2003-06-19 12:57:54 +0300 Pete French <pete@twisted.org.uk> wrote:

Doesnt OSX do this though ? The contextual menus on the dock I just
tried give me a "show in finder" which I cant find on any other menu.
Conmtentual menus may be bad - but in a windows world users actually
*expect* them oddly enough. Right click and look for "properties" is
second nature to most windows people I know. Dont underestimate the
importnace of familiarity. We all know that the modern keyboard layout
is suboptimal after all, but its one mostr people know and comming up
with better solutions hasnt been met with mass market success oddly
enough.

[Ed. note: The superiority of the Dvorak keyboard layout is a myth, or
more accurately, a hoax -- the oft-mentioned "study" by the US Navy was
performed by none other than the guy who held the patent on the Dvorak
keyboard]

The dvorak map 'is' superior for the english language, if you do a little 
research on the subject (as I did) you'll find that 70 % of your keystrokes on 
a dvorak keyboard are on the home row, and not (as is the case with qwerty) 
having the most commonly used key sequences spread far apart to prevent the 
jamming of the mechanical hammer mechanisms that were present in typewriters 
when the qwerty keymap was designed.

It took me around 6 - 8 weeks to gain the typing speed that I had with qwerty 
and my wrist tendons are thankful for the change too.


I want only to say that I've added these very bad things because the
users wanted them. Anyway, as I usually do before writing, I've looked
in the documentation where, in NSView, you can find:

- (NSMenu *)menuForEvent:(NSEvent *)theEvent

This was never supported on OPENSTEP for Mach. Like menu separators and
NSHelpPanel, it was created specifically for OPENSTEP Enterprise (that is
to say, Windows), and documented to only work on OPENSTEP Enterprise --
because it breaks a NeXTish UI.

The NeXT UI guidelines have this to say, among other things:

"Menus provide users a point of entry for all the functionality of an
application, its obscure and common features alike."

[snip]


Regards,

Ian

(Dvorak keymap user :) )





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