From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <3aaafc130903310736y14125bc2j66d99b3eaaf7cdf@mail.gmail.com> References: <8126F5C4-87DF-4EB8-9470-FACCB5B1BEAF@gmx.de> <13426df10903292040p20c315abs202dec77398e14a3@mail.gmail.com> <3aaafc130903292046v36a30813q8cdf93e006ffa632@mail.gmail.com> <509071940903300708r6c477fb2he6ed869f0ba57650@mail.gmail.com> <5d375e920903302126u7d5fcdd0nc16ebf9745fad018@mail.gmail.com> <6e35c0620903302136y683a8de6kff4a72ae490c4ef9@mail.gmail.com> <5d375e920903302300v4c5c4da4g32ec1e4af0648390@mail.gmail.com> <7970D693-EB2A-4B25-8B27-8759A33E5A30@gmail.com> <3aaafc130903310736y14125bc2j66d99b3eaaf7cdf@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:57:09 -0500 Message-ID: From: Eric Van Hensbergen To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone Topicbox-Message-UUID: ce3d4a68-ead4-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:36 AM, J.R. Mauro wrote: > On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Eric Van Hensbergen 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