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List:       kde-look
Subject:    RE: Usability and open source
From:       "Ben Last" <ben () last ! uk ! com>
Date:       2000-01-31 9:42:30
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> From: Richard Moore [mailto:rich@ipso-facto.freeserve.co.uk]
> I have been doing a little work in this area. I am writing a class
> KMouseHole that tries to improve Fitt's performace of widgets....
> The idea is to make a widget 'virtually' larger than it really is
> by moderating the relationship between mouse movement and pointer
> movement using QCursor::setPos(). It is similar to a snap-to type
> systsem, but less proscriptive.
Well, not having tried it maybe I shouldn't comment, but interfering with the
relationship between mouse movement and pointer movement can *really* get
annoying (in fact, it feels very, very wrong).  I'd also suggest that this is a
misinterpretation of Fitt - the law is intended to demonstrate the relationship
between screen size and position and effective availability to the user; big
things are easier to click.  Things "grabbing" the pointer as it passes over
interfere with the system's ability to reflect the user's intentions.
It also means that more widgets will be responding to MouseMove events (and
window-enter and window-exit, if I recall my X11 correctly) and thus you'll
potentially get more CPU consumption for a single mouse move (and apps can't be
swapped out if they have to track mouse moves, etc, etc).

> On a more general note though, I think we should perhaps be trying
> to recruit academic institutions for this. I know from my experience
> at the University of Manchester, that if we could define some small
> projects in research areas like this and were willing to put in
> the work to support the efforts and evaluate the results then we
> could propose these projects for students.
Now, that's a *nice* idea - students get a research project and KDE gets the
benefit.  In fact, MS certainly have a history of using research students and
getting the benefit of their ideas, so why not the OSS community!

ben

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