keyboard accelerators

[serge@euler.Berkeley.EDU serge@euler.Berkeley.EDU]

(Gee, the fire seems to be dying down.  Now, where did I put that
gasoline?  Oh, yeah ... WHOSH! :-)

Some random thoughts:

	+ Apple, which was mouse based from day one (TM) (R) (C) (:-),
	  has keyboard accelerators ...

	+ so does Windows (although you could say that it's because they
	  were trying to introduce mice into predominantly keyboard
	  based environment; also, Windows95 appears to have [much?]
	  less keyboard accelerators); still ... (both they and Apple
	  must have done some user interface studies; mustn't they?  :-)

	+ you can't do mouse ahead the same way you can do typeahead,
	  e.g. the mouse (pointer) can be in an arbitrary position, so
	  the motions needed to get it to the ``menu button'' (which can
	  also be in an arbitrary position, and move as well) differ
	  each time, unlike the keyboard (e.g. Ctrl+Esc,p,Return to get
	  to the Program Manager in W ... er, but I digress :-)

		+ anyone remember piewm (X based window manager with
		  circular instead of drop down menus)?  it was trying
		  to address some of these problems, e.g. you could
		  memory train your hand much easier: just click, pull
		  the mouse to the east and release

	+ we are still talking about predominantly keyboard based input
	  methods (until voice recognition becomes commonplace :-), so
	  most of the time you are typing, rather than clicking with the
	  mouse; even Pike (who had to quit his Help paper because he was
	  about to have to start using the keyboard :-)