Re: Alsaplayer

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From: Dave Vandervies
Subject: Re: Alsaplayer
Date: 21:38 on 02 Mar 2005
Somebody claiming to be Peter da Silva wrote:
> 
> > Back when I was about 13 I read a book on programming interfaces. It had a  
> > whole section just explaining why the down button/arrow should move the  
> > text "up."
> 
> There used to be a huge debate in the computer community over
> whether a down operation on a document should follow a model where
> you're moving the window (scroll the text up) or moving the document
> under the window (scroll the text down).

...and now that that's settled on moving the window, some programs are
starting to introduce the ability to move the document under the window
as well, with a distinct operation (usually dragging inside the window
instead of dragging something on the frame or a keyboard command).

This is Good; both types of movement are at times useful, and operating
inside the window to move what you're seeing and operating on the frame
to move the window you're seeing it through is as intuitive as an
interface can get (though that's not saying much for any workable
definition of intuitive).

Until whoever put gv together saw that dragging inside the window was a
good way to move around, and implemented that feature.

You can guess what you're moving when you do that, right?  Yep, it's
the frame.  Drag the document up, and the frame moves up.  Because,
y'know, the little icon on the side with the frame outline drawn on
something representing the shape of the document isn't a good enough
way to do that.  (Scroll bars?  What scroll bars?  Those are so last
decade.)


Dragging inside the window not moving anything and doing something else
entirely is understandable; Dragging inside the window to move doesn't
always make sense, and other operations sometimes do make sense.  But
dragging inside the window to move the frame *never* makes sense.  If I
wanted to move the frame, I'd use the widgets on the frame.


There's stuff above here

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