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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: RFC: Restricting mouse in popup menus
From:       Lubos Lunak <l.lunak () suse ! cz>
Date:       2005-05-18 14:52:22
Message-ID: 200505181652.22482.l.lunak () suse ! cz
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On Tuesday 17 of May 2005 22:59, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Tuesday 17 May 2005 01:59, Diego Moya (a.k.a. TuringTest) wrote:
> > In general, restricting the movement of the mouse to a section of the
> > screen is a bad idea, because it forbids the user to change her mind
> > an beginning a different task. In particular, it would make impossible
> > to cancel the menu without making a selection.
>
> well, there is the "click here to get out of it" area that Lubos described,
> but i really doubt people will grok that.
>
> and yes, confining mouse movements is a Bad Thing. it removes control from
> the user over something that is generally agreed upon for them to have
> control over.

 Oh well. The user wants to click inside the popup anyway, so I don't think 
making sure one cannot miss is _that_ bad.

> i'm not sure what problem this is supposed to fix for the  
> normal user.

 The same that the standalone menubar at the top of the screen tries to fix? 
Something to do with Fitts' Law I think. And, mind you, just like the 
mac-style menubar is not enabled by default, despite generally agreed upon to 
be better, this doesn't need to be either.

 It's simply an attempt to solve some of the problems of menus. See e.g. point 
6 in the Fitts' Law page - something I really hate about submenus and it 
happens to me quite often. It simply cannot happen with these patches.

>
> i can see it as an advantage for users with motor control disabilities,
> perhaps.

 I'm right-handed, but I use mouse relatively rarely, and I have it on the 
left side, so that I can access most of the important keys like Enter (which 
almost all happen to be on the right side) together with the mouse. I need to 
switch it for games, so maybe I normally don't have that fine control as the 
you, but I've been using it this way so long that I'd say I'm as good as the 
average Joe User.

 Also, Qt has a feature called sloppy submenus (disabled for some reason if 
I'm not mistaken) which tries to solve the problem with the submenus, so I 
guess I'm not only one sometimes missing something in menu navigation.

>
> this is also why i HATE the askpass dialog: it grabs keyboard input and
> doesn't let you type anywhere else. it's _my_ keyboard. gah.

 That's different, in this case it's supposed to be a security feature if I'm 
not mistaken.

-- 
Lubos Lunak
KDE developer
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