Re: [9fans] text editor

[Andrew Stitt <astitt@cats.ucsc.edu>]

> left/right.  This is a design decision.  Plan 9 use the mouse as it's
> main form of interaction.
im quickly saddening, i somehow believed that plan 9 took the good ideas
of unix and advanced once more on them, silly of me, now plan 9 looks
startlingly like a mac...using primarily the mouse :'(

> The keyboard, you might say, is an
> necessary evil for the entry of characters, but not much else.

isnt that how apple sees things? how is this better? how can this vastly
improve my efficiency? it seems like its going backwards. maybe some
numbers would help...

> Everything in acme is done using the mouse apart for text entry (and
> acme does everything).

i can traverse a directory tree so much faster if you give me a keyboard
then if you have me continously button2 click my way around in acme, wasnt
one of the strongest points of *nix the idea that you can string command
lines together freely? it seems like we are taking a step backwards. How
is the mouse faster then a command line?

>
> To recap the logic (it has been repeated many times in the archives),
> once you switch to mouse centric operation, you become faster, not
> slower.

so what you are trying to tell me is that the overhead of removing my
right (or left) hand from the keyboard, placing it on my mouse and
fondling with it until i point in just the right spot, then click, then
place my hand on the keyboard again and resume typing is somehow faster
then say the vi sequence 'esc kbbbhhi'. Im somehow missing the point,
using the mouse is a needless interrupt, you waste time (brain cycles if
you will) waiting for your arm to reposition your hand over the mouse, all
the while having to locate that silly pointer, why not just move the silly
cursor without moving your hand and just your fingers?.

Ever since the industrial revolution we've known that if you stay in one
place doing one thing you are much more efficient then having to move back
and forth.  Henry Ford noticed that if you have a guy digging a hole and
he has to move from the hole, take 4 steps to the wheelbarrow and come
back again, its much MUCH slower then if he was standing in one place and
just rotating between the hole and wheelbarrow.

>It may be counterintuitive, but I believe it has been shown
> by research, not that I can quote anything.

please do! I would like to see those facts. My facts are the obvious
lessons of the industrial revolution and that out of 30 years of unix
history and all the improvements that have been made, networking, memory
management etc, none have been made to the user interface (substantially),
vi and ed are still useful fast editors, just like they were when they
first came out...

> You have to move your
> hands to get to the cursor keys
much less then a whole foot to the mouse, but i use hjkl which are right
underneath my right hand, you can move your fingers faster then your whole
hand. Thats why most great guitarists have long fingers, its just easier.

>, so it's a whole bunch better if your
> default position is holding the mouse as it does lots of things
> besides positioning the cursor.

so i type with _just_ my left hand, got it!

>
> We've all been keyboard centric at one time in our lives, and I think
> I speak for the vast majority of the list when I say that we don't
> miss cursor keys.  At all.  In fact, quite a few people buy keyboards
> without cursor keys, function keys, windows keys, number pads and
> reclaim a good square foot of their desk.

such as the happy hacking keyboard. Of course you have to look at the
market, most of the users are probably vi users and are perfectly happy
using hjkl as their arrow keys when editing. If you look at many of the
early computer arcade style games, most of them use hjkl for direction. I
play some emulated nintendo games with my gf on her computer and I remap
my side of the keyboard to hjkl and let her have the cursor keys...

> So, stick with it, persevere, and you'll hopefully feel the benefit.

since i doubt I will ever see the great benefit in the mouse at least in
the forseable future, can someone point me to some descent sam
documentation? I cant seem to find much info on the keycommands you can
give it.

  thanks
  Andrew