Focus follows mouse. Why should I have to bring a window to the front to type or click in it? This is a relic of the single tasking world, where window managers were also task switchers. Feh! Gimme a real OS, separate windows from tasks.
Tell that to someone who has never used a computer. Despite the fact that in computer terms a window and a task are very seperate, in the real world, if you want to manipulate a typewriter, you have to bring it into focus (pick it up and sit in front of it) before you can interact with it. Although that doesnt make much sense to a geek, the perfect user-interface would be the one that makes the most sense to someone with no preconceived notions about how computers work.
Decent cut and paste. X users know the joy of the three-button mouse and the single click paste. (Selecting text precisely also seems to be more difficult on the Mac, but maybe that's just me.) Really, many of us are smart enough to have more than one button on our mouse. Much more convenient than the keyboard accelerators - which fail to work a good percentage of the time.
I like the third button-paste as much as anyone else, but again, it doesn't make sense if you think "outside the box". The mouse should serve as a device for manipulating the screen and icons, whereas the keyboard is for manipulating text. There is no reason we should be limited to one, two or even three buttons, but consistent use amongst those buttons is very important. A first button should be for clicking, a second for context menus, and a third for who-knows-what. Text manipulation doesnt make much sense for a mouse button.
Resizing windows - why only at one corner? This often makes me drag and then resize instead of just resize. Yuck.
I can agree with you there, but it is simpler, despite less convenient. Please let me iconify a window in some better way that reducing it to it's title bar. That takes up much too much screen space - even the dreaded taskbar is better.
Reducing it to its titlebar makes a lot more sense then sending it off to a taskbar. If you grow used to window-shading, it makes more sense to shrink a window in its current position and regrow it in the same place then it does to send it all the way to the opposite end of the screen and move the mouse all the way over there next time you intend on using it. The ideal GUI is one that works with no preconceived notions, but is easily modified to what a geek wants. Focus-Follows-Mouse can be added in a control panel, and borders can be reconfigured, and you can even change the bindings on a mice in the perfect GUI. But initially this GUI must make sense to someone who has never used a computer so that they have as few new concepts to grasp when they begin as possible. The Macintosh is popular amongst educators because of its small learning curve and Linux developers could do well to follow its example.
Isn't this the sort of application that the Crusoe is perfect for? A webpad seems too minimal for the task at hand, but a laptop could act far too much as a distraction.
There has to be a middle-ground, a webpad with the added abilities of word processing and Palm Pilot-esque features (ie, a planner, calendar, datebook.) The Crusoe is perfect for this. Coupled with a school wide wireless LAN, the learning curve for using the device would be very small while the portability would be very high.
And of course, it could all run on linux. For very cheap.
Don't forget the inevitable crisis of geeks being punished for investigating geek technology which might hurt our a established non-geek leaders who already profile and discriminate against the same geek children.
Sound and Music creation should definitely be a priority for Linux development. Despite what trolls (who tend to exist outside of the "real world") would have you believe, there are many people out there who want an alternative for x86 music creation. Advancements in this area for Linux could be really useful. There are even casual music-makers who still have to reboot to Windows in order to make music-- there are simply no Linux alternatives. Unlike gaming and other fields Linux is exploding into, music may be an area where they could really carve out a niche and I anxiously await future articles on Linux as a music development platform.
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Focus follows mouse. Why should I have to bring a window to the front to type or click in it? This is a relic of the single tasking world, where window managers were also task switchers. Feh! Gimme a real OS, separate windows from tasks.
Tell that to someone who has never used a computer. Despite the fact that in computer terms a window and a task are very seperate, in the real world, if you want to manipulate a typewriter, you have to bring it into focus (pick it up and sit in front of it) before you can interact with it. Although that doesnt make much sense to a geek, the perfect user-interface would be the one that makes the most sense to someone with no preconceived notions about how computers work.
Decent cut and paste. X users know the joy of the three-button mouse and the single click paste. (Selecting text precisely also seems to be more difficult on the Mac, but maybe that's just me.) Really, many of us are smart enough to have more than one button on our mouse. Much more convenient than the keyboard accelerators - which fail to work a good percentage of the time.
I like the third button-paste as much as anyone else, but again, it doesn't make sense if you think "outside the box". The mouse should serve as a device for manipulating the screen and icons, whereas the keyboard is for manipulating text.
There is no reason we should be limited to one, two or even three buttons, but consistent use amongst those buttons is very important. A first button should be for clicking, a second for context menus, and a third for who-knows-what. Text manipulation doesnt make much sense for a mouse button.
Resizing windows - why only at one corner? This often makes me drag and then resize instead of just resize. Yuck.
I can agree with you there, but it is simpler, despite less convenient.
Please let me iconify a window in some better way that reducing it to it's title bar. That takes up much too much screen space - even the dreaded taskbar is better.
Reducing it to its titlebar makes a lot more sense then sending it off to a taskbar. If you grow used to window-shading, it makes more sense to shrink a window in its current position and regrow it in the same place then it does to send it all the way to the opposite end of the screen and move the mouse all the way over there next time you intend on using it.
The ideal GUI is one that works with no preconceived notions, but is easily modified to what a geek wants. Focus-Follows-Mouse can be added in a control panel, and borders can be reconfigured, and you can even change the bindings on a mice in the perfect GUI. But initially this GUI must make sense to someone who has never used a computer so that they have as few new concepts to grasp when they begin as possible. The Macintosh is popular amongst educators because of its small learning curve and Linux developers could do well to follow its example.
Isn't this the sort of application that the Crusoe is perfect for? A webpad seems too minimal for the task at hand, but a laptop could act far too much as a distraction.
There has to be a middle-ground, a webpad with the added abilities of word processing and Palm Pilot-esque features (ie, a planner, calendar, datebook.) The Crusoe is perfect for this. Coupled with a school wide wireless LAN, the learning curve for using the device would be very small while the portability would be very high.
And of course, it could all run on linux. For very cheap.
Don't forget the inevitable crisis of geeks being punished for investigating geek technology which might hurt our a established non-geek leaders who already profile and discriminate against the same geek children.
A Jon Katz story if ever one there was.
Sound and Music creation should definitely be a priority for Linux development.
Despite what trolls (who tend to exist outside of the "real world") would have you believe, there are many people out there who want an alternative for x86 music creation. Advancements in this area for Linux could be really useful. There are even casual music-makers who still have to reboot to Windows in order to make music-- there are simply no Linux alternatives.
Unlike gaming and other fields Linux is exploding into, music may be an area where they could really carve out a niche and I anxiously await future articles on Linux as a music development platform.