| Posted by Keith Thompson ® , Fri, Nov 05, 1999, 02:06:40 | Forum |
I wrote:
> > p.s. I like the idea of the slide on the BS key toggling the state
> > of that key.
>
> Frankly, I don't. In the version I'm using now, 2.0b2, a tap on
> the BS key does a backspace, and a slide does a delete; there is no
> state. That's the behavior I prefer.
emmanuel wrote:
> I am sorry but I strongly disagree with you.
> Sliding repeatedly is tedious compared to tapping repeatedly.
Jean Ichbiah wrote:
> Just to summarize the current position after the comments by Derek,
> Tom, and Keith.
>
> (1) Sliding any of the space bars in any directions will do a backspace
>
> (2) Backspace key unchanged. That is, sliding the backspace key does
> a delete.
Later, Jean Ichbiah wrote:
> It seems that you two agree.
>
> We will be able to toggle the backspace key into a delete key by
> sliding it. Then Emmanuel will be able to do repeated deletes without
> sliding by taps on the delete key.
>
> On the other hand, as Keith suggested, the backspace action obtained
> by sliding the space bar will not be tied to the state of the
> delete/backspace key. There Emmanuel's argument does not apply since
> sliding is already involved.
Well, somebody still disagrees with somebody, but I'm not sure who or
with whom. In Jean Ichbiah's first message, he said that sliding the
backspace key does a delete (no state change); this is the behavior
in 2.0b5, and I like it. In his second message, he said that sliding
the backspace key toggles it into a delete key (a state change).
Which is it?
Personally, I don't mind a little sliding; I *do* mind excessive
state changes. I don't want to have to think about the current state
of the backspace key before I can use it. If it's done this way,
I'll probably just avoid sliding the backspace key; if I need to do a
delete, I suppose I'll slide to change the state, tap it, then slide to
change the state back (which is much more time-consuming than a single
slide). Or I'll stick with 2.0b5. The problem I have is that there
would be no way to do a delete without changing the state of a key.
If I want to delete enough text that repeated sliding would be a
problem, it's easier to highlight and delete the text itself.
(Emmanuel, I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying that my
preferences differ from yours.)
Would it be practical to have separate dedicated keys for backspace
and delete? With sliding for capital letters, perhaps there's less
need for two shift keys, and one of them can be changed to a Delete
key (though I'm sure someone would object to that). Or perhaps some
of this could be added to the options menu (though I haven't worked
out the details, and I know the options menu is a scarce resource).
| Edit | | | View All | | | Current page | Author |
|