Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

["J.R. Mauro" <jrm8005@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 10:57 AM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:36 AM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The fact that rio and/or acme have a limited usage model with such a device
>>> and/or multitouch in general is a shame -- wouldn't it be nice to fix that.
>>
>> This is a very good point. As much as I like rio, I can't help but be
>> aggravated by it sometimes, and it would be nice to have someone take
>> a fresh look at interacting with it and possibly solve some of the
>> shortcomings.
>>
>
> I think the key here is devices like the iPhone beg a different model
> -- rio and ACME were developed for graphical, mouse/keyboard setups
> (with relatively large screens I might add) -- smaller devices or
> devices with different models (like set top boxes or game consoles)
> really require a different set of tools/apps.  I think this is one of
> the things that was interesting about the Plan B approach -- different
> front-ends for similar back ends.  I doubt anyone wants to use the
> iphone as a developer workstation, but it might be nice to make it an
> additional screen for faces, or as the student points out and
> additional user-interface to someone's work environment.
>
> As far as fixing rio and ACME, I would urge anyone looking at that to
> come up with a complementary solution as opposed to messing with the
> existing model.  I don't see any reason why alternative interfaces
> can't co-exist which support keyboard-only interaction (ron's smackme
> comes to mind as well as wmii's model) as well as multitouch on
> laptops (actually the iphone's new cut/paste model might work for
> multitouch trackpads -- and while not as natural as the existing
> chording method might make ACME useable when one finds oneself without
> a three button mouse handy).  Another avenue to pursue is looking at
> using gestures to replace chords -- it seems like pinch and expand
> might be natural replacements for cut and paste.  I don't think the
> community or the system benefits form limiting our options (but lets
> keep them options -- I still prefer chording when possible ;)
>
>        -eric
>

Yes, that's sane. The interaction model depends very much on context,
and there is no one-size-fits-all interaction model. Being able to
switch models on the fly would also be nice.