Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[hh via use-livecode]

>> hh:
>> As you said earlier:
>> "... some things make more semantic sense with Alt rather than Shift".
>>
>> Alt happens.

> RG:
> ... but not in a vacuum.

"Alt happens" is the alt-variant of "Shift happens" (Forrest Gump).

> RG wrote:
> A click gesture is so common that most folks don't even think about it. 
> They just click, down and release - in one fluid action, cognitively and 
> temporally.  Most folks don't even conceptualize that mouseDown and 
> mouseUp are separate states, at least not with regard to push buttons.

Probably I'm not from earth. To click "cognitively and temporally" or to
"conceptualize" separate mouse states is not my thing. I simply think before
I click just the same as I think before I talk or write.

So I better stop here. And use simple click actions for my simple stacks
which do not intend to be great apps, so they don't need any avant-garde
UI design.


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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[Richard Gaskin via use-livecode]

Roger Eller wrote:

> Further back, it was said that this is only an issue when LiveCode
> misbehaves and is a window can't be selected because it is outside the
> screen.  So if true, LC should have a built-in way to recover the
> window,
> like how Control-period stops a script. How about Control-period-
> click, and the window becomes stuck to the pointer until the next
> click?

I believe there are options in Compiz Config to do that for on-screen 
windows, but offscreen windows present a different problem:  if there's 
more than one, how do you know which one to put beneath the mouse.


FWIW in devolution's DeskView, right-clicking in that window brings up a 
context menu that includes "Center Offscreen Windows".



I suppose I could wait for the IDE team to add something like that, but 
LC Script is so easy to use something like that takes only a couple 
minutes to add in a plugin today.


Similarly, as much as I like to many things about the Project Browser, 
the more I use it on complex layouts the more I'm with Jacque and others 
who find its dual-selection-mode way of working both confusing and 
complicated.


So I've begun resurrecting an old object browser I'd set aside when the 
PB first came out.  IIRC the LC team has expressed that the PB's 
dual-selection-mode is here to stay, so on that one if I want to get 
back to a world where one click = one selection I have no choice but to 
write that myself anyway.  Thankfully LC Script is easy and enjoyable 
enough where making an object browser is not only rewarding but also fun.


--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World Systems
 Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 
 ambassa...@fourthworld.comhttp://www.FourthWorld.com

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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[Richard Gaskin via use-livecode]

hh wrote:

> You could try to rethink why that key is named "optionKey" or
> "altKey".
>
> Using the altkey with another key on the keyboard is not the same
> as using it with the mouse. Easy to understand. It's a simple option.
>
> As you said earlier:
> "... some things make more semantic sense with Alt rather than Shift".
>
> ---
> Alt happens.

...but not in a vacuum.

With the rare exception of some games (where keys are used in such 
unusual ways that their designs don't really apply to discussions of 
productivity apps), the Alt/Option key does nothing by itself.


It's a modifier of some other action, either another keypress or a mouse 
action.


A click gesture is so common that most folks don't even think about it. 
They just click, down and release - in one fluid action, cognitively and 
temporally.  Most folks don't even conceptualize that mouseDown and 
mouseUp are separate states, at least not with regard to push buttons.


If we attempt to redefine the click just to accommodate a particular 
modifier key, for myself I believe that's focusing on the less 
productive side of the equation.


When solving a UI challenge it's often helpful to seek guidance in 
existing solutions.


Mark Weider's reminder is very helpful here:

I think considering how much of a known behavior this is in the
linux desktop world it's unlikely to be changed

So while the semantics that I feel can be useful for distinguishing 
between Ctrl, Shift, and Alt ae arguably valuable, I have to recognize 
that any value they have is relative to the audience in which they're used.


And since the Linux world has been operating without Alt-click for 
anything beyond window moving for so long, this leaves us with a 
question:  what do they do instead?


The answer seems most commonly to be what the LiveCode team has already 
done, along with LibreOffice draw and others:  where a drag+modifier is 
used for cloning a a selected control, the modifier is Ctrl.


Some layout programs (Synfig and Inkscape come to mind) don't even have 
a drag+modifier action for cloning at all.


So the Alt-click gesture is rarely used except in a subset of app types, 
and within a given category of application it's not even needed across 
the whole scope of apps within it.


If we look outside of graphics programs, in other Linux apps we see 
Ctrl-drag used for duplicating the selection, including Gedit for 
duplicating dragged text (as opposed to just moving it), and even the 
Nautilus file manager, for duplicating files.


Where a modifier key is needed for clicks, LC's native behavior seems to 
follow the closest thing we can find to a common convention.


In fact, if we think about this a bit more, Ctrl-click is most 
specifically Ctrl-drag, which is subtly but importantly a different gesture.


As I think about this more, if we skip dragging operations and focus 
exclusively on single-point clicks, I can't think of any common uses at all.


And maybe that's not so bad.  Every feature that requires both hands and 
non-visibly-self-evident gestures to achieve is probably one that won't 
get used often anyway.


--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World Systems
 Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 
 ambassa...@fourthworld.comhttp://www.FourthWorld.com

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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[Roger Eller via use-livecode]

On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 3:08 PM, hh via use-livecode <
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> You could try to rethink why that key is named "optionKey" or "altKey".
>
> Using the altkey with another key on the keyboard is not the same
> as using it with the mouse. Easy to understand. It's a simple option.
>
> As you said earlier:
> "... some things make more semantic sense with Alt rather than Shift".
>
> ---
> Alt happens.
>
>
Further back, it was said that this is only an issue when LiveCode
misbehaves and is a window can't be selected because it is outside the
screen.  So if true, LC should have a built-in way to recover the window,
like how Control-period stops a script. How about Control-period-click, and
the window becomes stuck to the pointer until the next click?

~Roger
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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[hh via use-livecode]

You could try to rethink why that key is named "optionKey" or "altKey".

Using the altkey with another key on the keyboard is not the same
as using it with the mouse. Easy to understand. It's a simple option.

As you said earlier:
"... some things make more semantic sense with Alt rather than Shift".

---
Alt happens.

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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[Richard Gaskin via use-livecode]

hh wrote:
>>> hh wrote:
>>> Nearly all linux users (incl. Raspi users) are smarter than you
>>> believe.
>
>> RG wrote:
>> Personally, I think great app design is more a function of
>> discovering what's intuitive than testing cognitive boundaries.
>
> Sorry, I forgot to say that you are an exception:
> Obviously you are not smarter than you believe  ;-)

I'm a victim of the old saying, "if you believe you can't do something, 
you're right". :)


I believe I'm unable to describe fundamental gestures in a way my users 
would enjoy learning.


So instead I just use different gestures, aiming for ones they already 
understand.


--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World Systems
 Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 
 ambassa...@fourthworld.comhttp://www.FourthWorld.com

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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[hh via use-livecode]

>> hh wrote:
>> Nearly all linux users (incl. Raspi users) are smarter than you believe.

> RG wrote:
> Personally, I think great app design is more a function of discovering 
> what's intuitive than testing cognitive boundaries.

Sorry, I forgot to say that you are an exception:
Obviously you are not smarter than you believe  ;-)

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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[Richard Gaskin via use-livecode]

hh wrote:

> Richard,
>
> now that you essentially said over and over again
> "it also means not being able to rely on Alt-click in our UIs":
>
> I say, still valid and also worth to repeat, there is a difference in
> "alt-clicking" between alt-mouseDown and alt-mouseUp on linux:
>
> [1]
> *** alt-mouseDown does NOT come through to LC.
> [2]
> *** alt-mouseUp works:
> *** You have to FIRST click the object, THEN -- while the mouse is
> down --
> *** hold the altKey down.
>
> Good to know. (What, by the way, also works on MacOS and Win 7-10.)
> No single user of my stacks had ever a problem with that.
>
>> RG wrote:
>> Or more specifically, clickdown-hold-alt-clickrelease, which is so
>> unusual that I wouldn't expect to be able to explain it to end-users.
>
> To explain the "clickdown-hold-alt-clickrelease" you could try the
> lines:
> [a] to have "mouseUp" working you should let the mouse up again some
> time.
> [b] for developers: Also add "on mouseRelease; mouseUp; end
> mouseRelease".
>
> Nearly all linux users (incl. Raspi users), are smarter than you
> believe.

Sure, it's possible, but not everything that's possible is also desirable.

Personally, I think great app design is more a function of discovering 
what's intuitive than testing cognitive boundaries.


But like I wrote earlier, ultimately this is a minor issue, since it 
relates to hidden features, and a hidden feature is usually an unused 
feature anyway.


So instead of worrying about maximizing mod key use on mouse actions, 
I'm spending more time finding ways to reduce hidden features altogether.


--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World Systems
 Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 
 ambassa...@fourthworld.comhttp://www.FourthWorld.com

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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[hh via use-livecode]

Richard,

now that you essentially said over and over again
"it also means not being able to rely on Alt-click in our UIs":

I say, still valid and also worth to repeat, there is a difference in
"alt-clicking" between alt-mouseDown and alt-mouseUp on linux:

[1] 
*** alt-mouseDown does NOT come through to LC.
[2] 
*** alt-mouseUp works:
*** You have to FIRST click the object, THEN -- while the mouse is down --
*** hold the altKey down.

Good to know. (What, by the way, also works on MacOS and Win 7-10.)
No single user of my stacks had ever a problem with that.

> RG wrote:
> Or more specifically, clickdown-hold-alt-clickrelease, which is so 
> unusual that I wouldn't expect to be able to explain it to end-users.

To explain the "clickdown-hold-alt-clickrelease" you could try the lines:
[a] to have "mouseUp" working you should let the mouse up again some time.
[b] for developers: Also add "on mouseRelease; mouseUp; end mouseRelease".

Nearly all linux users (incl. Raspi users), are smarter than you believe.


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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[Richard Gaskin via use-livecode]

Mark Wieder wrote:

> On 05/29/2017 08:30 AM, Richard Gaskin via use-livecode wrote:
>
>> Personally, it seems a bit heavy-handed of the Gnome team to block
>> a modifier key so sweepingly.  I may see about submitting an
>> enhancement request to them to change that from Alt-click to
>> Alt-rightclick, which seems far better given how broadly the Alt
>> key us used on other platforms and how relatively seldom it's
>> used for moving windows in Gnome-base desktop environments.
>
> I think considering how much of a known behavior this is in the linux
> desktop world it's unlikely to be changed. True, I wouldn't have made
> that design decision, but I think it's something we're stuck with.

I suspect you're right.  Besides, there is one upside to losing the use 
of one of the three most common modifier keys:  it prompts us to 
reconsider the role of modifier keys on click actions altogether.


As keyboard shortcuts for menu items, Alt and other mod keys work well 
and can be very important.  But part of their importance come from being 
explicit: you can look at the menu item to learn the shortcut.


With click-related actions, mod keys that provide alternate behavior are 
effectively hidden features.  As such, most users may never discover 
them at all anyway.


This relegates them to seldom-needed things, and since they're 
seldom-needed maybe overloading clicks with different alternate actions 
for all three main mod keys (Ctrl, Shift, and Alt) would be a bit much 
anyway.


So sacrificing Alt for Shift or Ctrl on click actions isn't so bad after 
all.  If nothing else it reminds us to avoid doing that to begin with. :)


Of course there are some rare cases where a shortcut action using a mod 
key with a click can make sense, such as in a drawing or layout program 
where so many things are done with mouse actions.  But even there we can 
see how other programs handle that, including LiveCode.


For example, on Mac and Windows it's common to duplicate selected 
objects with Alt-drag (or Option-drag on Mac).  On Linux this is done 
with Ctrl-drag.


If we also needed a separate action for Ctrl-drag and we also need to 
use Shift-drag, only then would be loss of Alt-drag be a problem.


But in practice I have to admit it's quite rare to see four different 
actions for a drag gesture, the default with no mod keys and then 
different actions for Alt-drag, Shift-drag, and Ctrl-drag.


If I were to find myself considering such an unusual number of hidden 
gesture features, it would seem likely I could move at least one of them 
to a right-click context menu.




> I think the only time I really use the alt-click window-moving feature
> is when LiveCode windows misbehave and end up too tall or on the wrong
> monitor or behind a menubar. Which is fairly often these days.

Yeas ago I would sometimes find myself with windows whose drag bar would 
submarine beneath LC's menu/toolbar, do I made DeskView, a small utility 
that has a mini view of your screen with LC windows represented in it, 
and among other things it allows you to move windows by dragging the 
mini representations of them in its window.


FWIW, it's part of the free devolution toolkit:
http://fourthworld.com/products/devolution/index.html

--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World Systems
 Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 
 ambassa...@fourthworld.comhttp://www.FourthWorld.com

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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[Mark Wieder via use-livecode]

On 05/29/2017 08:30 AM, Richard Gaskin via use-livecode wrote:

Personally, it seems a bit heavy-handed of the Gnome team to block a 
modifier key so sweepingly.  I may see about submitting an enhancement 
request to them to change that from Alt-click to Alt-rightclick, which 
seems far better given how broadly the Alt key us used on other 
platforms and how relatively seldom it's used for moving windows in 
Gnome-base desktop environments.


I think considering how much of a known behavior this is in the linux 
desktop world it's unlikely to be changed. True, I wouldn't have made 
that design decision, but I think it's something we're stuck with. There 
are lots of decisions I question on other platforms as well (the Start 
button, naming folders "My ", etc) but they are what they are.


I think the only time I really use the alt-click window-moving feature 
is when LiveCode windows misbehave and end up too tall or on the wrong 
monitor or behind a menubar. Which is fairly often these days.


--
 Mark Wieder
 ahsoftw...@gmail.com

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Re: Using alt-key clicks on linux

[Richard Gaskin via use-livecode]

hh wrote:

>> Richard Gaskin wrote (in thread 'nice Sierra feature'):
>>> Mark Wieder wrote:
>>> On linux you can alt-click to grab and move a window.
>>
>> ... which is both great and horrible.
>> It's handy, of course, but it also means not being able to rely on
>> Alt-click in our UIs.
>> In many cases I've migrated some Alt-click functionality to Shift-
>> click, but it's nice to have both mod keys available, and some things
>> make more semantic sense with Alt rather than Shift.
>
> Because this is so important for a lot of Mac/Win/linux stacks,
> especially linux-RaspberryPi, I use it there often (and let user's
> know in the help):
>
> [1]
> *** alt-mouseDown does NOT come through to LC.
>
> [2]
> *** alt-mouseUp works:
> *** You have to FIRST click the object, THEN -- while the mouse is
> down --
> *** hold the altKey down.
>
> (Usually nearly everybody uses the reverse order: first the key then
> the click).
> *** So one could say, "alt-click" on linux should be done as
> "click-alt" ***

Or more specifically, clickdown-hold-alt-clickrelease, which is so 
unusual that I wouldn't expect to be able to explain it to end-users.


This behavior can be turned off with Compiz Config, dconf Editor, and 
other such tools, but in a world where ~80 of users never alter 
preference settings I wouldn't rely on it.


Personally, it seems a bit heavy-handed of the Gnome team to block a 
modifier key so sweepingly.  I may see about submitting an enhancement 
request to them to change that from Alt-click to Alt-rightclick, which 
seems far better given how broadly the Alt key us used on other 
platforms and how relatively seldom it's used for moving windows in 
Gnome-base desktop environments.


But in the meantime, supporting Linux GUIs means dealing with Gnome 
decisions, so the Alt-click is not easily available for most apps.


--
 Richard Gaskin
 Fourth World Systems
 Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
 
 ambassa...@fourthworld.comhttp://www.FourthWorld.com

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Using alt-key clicks on linux

[hh via use-livecode]

[I take the liberty to move this to a new thread in order to have a more
appropriate subject]

> Richard Gaskin wrote (in thread 'nice Sierra feature'):
>>> Mark Wieder wrote: 
>>> On linux you can alt-click to grab and move a window. 
> 
> ... which is both great and horrible. 
> It's handy, of course, but it also means not being able to rely on 
> Alt-click in our UIs. 
> In many cases I've migrated some Alt-click functionality to Shift-click, 
> but it's nice to have both mod keys available, and some things make more 
> semantic sense with Alt rather than Shift.

Because this is so important for a lot of Mac/Win/linux stacks, especially
linux-RaspberryPi, I use it there often (and let user's know in the help):

[1]
*** alt-mouseDown does NOT come through to LC.

[2]
*** alt-mouseUp works:
*** You have to FIRST click the object, THEN -- while the mouse is down --
*** hold the altKey down.

(Usually nearly everybody uses the reverse order: first the key then the click).
*** So one could say, "alt-click" on linux should be done as "click-alt" ***

Try it from a button with

on mouseUp
   put the optionkey into fld 1
end mouseUp

Tested on Ubuntu/Mint/Rapbian.
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