| Re: BackSpace/Delete - Re: You two agree -- Keith Thompson | |||
| Posted by Jean Ichbiah ® , Sun, Nov 07, 1999, 18:37:53 | Top | Forum | |
A consensus is emerging for solution A and your comments are quite unanimous in rejecting the notion of "State" for keys that generate characters. I find this very interesting and justified.
If we look at the "States" in Fitaly, we have them coming from options. The first set of options does not affect which characters are generated in any way:
- increase/decrease size
- show/don't show shifting
- allow/ don't allow moving
- start by abc/123 tap
- set sound on/off
- set left/right side bar
The second set of options affect the characters generated but they have the nature of preferences which are set once and for all and therefore need not to be checked before tapping a key:
- set phone/calculator pad
- set 12-34-56-78-90/12345-67890
- set symbols/card suits
We also have one-time state keys: the shift key, the accent keys, and the two Graffiti keys. Here it is the fact that they are one-time that removes the risk of forgetting in which state we are.
Finally, we have three State keys that cause modifications of the screen: Caps lock, the abc/123 keys, and the arrow/accent key. Caps lock has tradition for it, and for all three keys the fact that the screen is substantially modified means they are not error prone (admittedly less modification in the case of arrow/accent).
The backspace/delete toggle contemplated by solution B would have created a fourth case. I read the (near) unanimous reactions as meaning that backspace is something you want to do very fast. So you want to tap on that key without having to even look at its current caption.
So we will go for A. And thanks to your comments we have a good rationale for this decision.
Jean Ichbiah.
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