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http://penguinpetes.com

I aim all of these not just at Linux, BSD, and Unix-alikes, but at every computer system ever. Nor do I say all of this as a power-using geek, but to apply it to every computer user everywhere.

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snotbutter's picture
Created by snotbutter 14 years 27 weeks ago – Made popular 14 years 27 weeks ago
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braydon's picture

braydon

14 years 27 weeks 2 days 7 hours ago

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Refreshing. Number 3 (Repetitive

Refreshing.

Number 3 (Repetitive stress injury comes from the mouse, not the keyboard) is not true.

Treatments for RSI
(...)
It is likely the partial or complete cessation of hand activity might be necessary for some period of time in order for healing to begin.[citation needed] Adaptive technology ranging from special keyboards and mouse replacements to speech recognition software might be necessary.
(...)
Switching to a much more ergonomic keyboard layout such as Dvorak keyboard.
(...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury

Number 1 (Keying is faster than mousing.) is not true.

There are things that are faster with the keyboard, and faster with the mouse...;)

Other than that, I agree mostly.

hirak99's picture

hirak99

14 years 27 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago

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It may or may not be better to

It may or may not be better to type - but the reasons that you have given are somewhat... vague.
Although in some cases I do agree with you that keyboard is a good option - there are situations where I do not.

1.a) Just because keyboard *alternatives* exist, it doesn't mean keyboards are faster. From another point of view, mouse alternatives also do exist for most of the things that can be done with keyboards.
1.b) If others call it a shortcut, that is no proof/argument. If at all, it may mean that who came up with the terminology felt it's going to make things faster. For me, it might be slower/faster depending on the keybaord combination - for example Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V are definitely faster, but using Emacs is definitely slower, for >90% people.

2. It is obvious why people give apt-get as an answer. Reasons being: A) Whether or not it is difficult to use mouse, it's definitely difficult to describe the 'mouse way' of doing it. B) If someone gives an apt-get answer, then whoever likes Synaptic and knows a bit about command line can go and download it from Synaptic instead. C) (Personal opinion) Once you know which package exactly to install, the perfect name, there's much less point going through Synaptic GUI - except may be if you don't remember and don't want to look up what's the command for "complete removal" of a package, "reinstallation" of a package, etc.

3. I agree to this one! Never thouht about it before, but it is true - when I played mouse based games (I think) I got more stressed on my wrists. Plus, you can't bring your mouse to your lap as you can with the keyboard!

4. This is because commands were there long time before GUIs were there. As a matter of fact, certain things in GUIs are now standard - thanks to how Apple, MS have paved the way - and guidelines like HIG. One can also argue, that GUIs are standard across platforms (you'll always see Edit->Search wherever applicable in any moderately planned GUI application - whereas grep may not be accessible across platforms).

5. Not agreed. Commands are powerful, to do *specific* things - like looping, conditional processing, etc., for which a scripting is much more suitable. For day to day life, it may be easier for people (myself included) to right click and choose "Extract to...", and select a folder to extract an archive.

6. Agreed.

7. Not agreed! Probably you're right with brain being good with words (although language is a most recent characteristic in evolution - recent enough to doubt if the brain was designed to be good at it), but GUI's have words everywhere too. And to cite one of numerous examples, most people who have worked with any proper text editor (Notepad, Notepad++, gedit, kate, Programmer's Notepad) for a while, will vouch for me after they've tried their hands on VI or Emacs.

8. Agreed they are changing, but I'd like to think they're striving to being better. As long as they don't loose back-compatibility, I do not mind. If I'm adamant with the scroll bar, I'd not bother about wheel. If I've memorized Ctrl+Ins=Copy, I need not learn Ctrl+C (max I'd have to change the key binding).

9. Now you lost me really. You yourself cite the most horrible (and well known) example possible... and then justify saying read before pressing enter?? Not sure I understood what you meant... but sorry I strongly disagree.

10. I have to type anyway does not mean I typing is better. What if a program exists where you can't do something without mouse? (Now although imo it's a very bad design, such programs do exist - and a mouse fanatic may not be troubled by the fact that there's no keyboard alternative of doing a certain task there at all.)

braydon's picture

braydon

14 years 27 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago

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There really needs to be a change

There really needs to be a change to both the these interfaces to form a CLI and GUI merge, or CLGUI (Cliguey), by means of radial/pie menus controlled with, mouse, keyboard, voice, and other interfaces. :) This way if you're using the mouse mostly you don't need to move your hand to the keyboard, or if you're using the keyboard, you don't need to move your hand to the mouse, thus eliminating that repetitive null movement. Furthermore, Gui's are easy to learn because the options are all displayed in the interface, in the CLI you need to look elsewhere (outside of the actual interface).

Our visual memory is also much stronger than our word/vocabulary memory, and thus even though the CLI has many advantages, it takes more practice and effort to remember (for those that understand the advantages it's worth the sacrifice. I often will make notes of commands so I can remember them later (this would be more verbose to do with a gui, since gui's are not language based and often change (but the need to do so is less because they're easier to remember.)))

A GLGUI would also mean better accessibility, and improved voice control support. For mobile devices, where there isn't a keyboard and only a multi-touch or touch screen (tablets, phones), this could be a huge advantage. Have you seen radial/pie menu based typing (interesting idea for such scenarios). Radial menus are also more ergonomic because they use a wider range of movements (less repetitive).

I am working on a web-based tool for creating and modifying websites that will be using radial menus as a primary means of creation and manipulation. Watch http://interfce.com for news (rss feed: http://www.interfce.com/?feed=rss2).

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