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

[Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com>]

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