[2932] in java-interest
Re: Warping pointer
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Roger Fujii)
Sat Oct 21 05:34:47 1995
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 03:17:19 -0400
From: rmf@lookhere.com (Roger Fujii)
To: java-interest@java.sun.com
> In the Macintosh ToolBox you will not find a command to position the
> pointer. This is purposely because the pointer is supposed to be associated
> by the user to its finger. Braking the association will brake the
> uncouncious link between the pointer and his hand. And this will result in
> giving the impression of uncontrolable pointer and tool, unintuitive behaviour.
This is all under the simplistic assumption that *ALL* applications would
want to use the mouse as a pointer ONLY. There are several valid examples
of when you would want to warp a pointer. A slider, for one. It would
not be unreasonable for a cursor to attach itself to a slider. A better
example would be a game. A mouse driven game usually uses relative movements
for control. If you do not warp the cursor to somewhere reasonable (like
the middle of a window), you stop getting deltas when you reach one edge of
a screen.
> The Macintosh UI is not just a good idea. It is also the result of extended
> testing and analyzing users feedback. This last very important point is mostly
> dropped of the progam developpment cycle. The Macintosh guidelines for
> developers insisted on the importance of that point.
>
The rules of UI should be separated from the capability of the library.
We have spent the good portion of the last three months trying to get
around incredibly idiotic restrictions of the mac because Apple has
deemed it unimportant for people to do these things (untranslated blitting
to screen, user-generated color cursors, etc, user-generated rasters.).
This is purely unproductive as we end up faking it anyway (and it isn't
because there is a better alternative). Philosophical restrictions are
fine, when you can still get the job done in another way in the roughly
the same amount of time. It is really stupid when you aren't given an
alternative.
-r
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