Re: NSLayoutManager vs BBEdit (Was Re: Carbon vs Cocoa arguments)
Re: NSLayoutManager vs BBEdit (Was Re: Carbon vs Cocoa arguments)
- Subject: Re: NSLayoutManager vs BBEdit (Was Re: Carbon vs Cocoa arguments)
- From: Dennis De Mars <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 00:38:06 -0700
Yes, the delay is necessary for the reason you cite. The thing that is
insane about drag-and-drop editing in OS X (I wouldn't pick the word
insane, but obstinately annoying would be close) is that there is no
visual feedback indicating when you are switching from "select" mode to
"drag" mode.
In the old days, you would hold down the mouse button until the
insertion cursor changed to the arrow cursor, then you could drag. This
was a sensible way to do things that permitted the normal selection
behavior but also allowed drag-and-drop editing and the visual cue of
the cursor changing made it very intuitive and almost effortless.
In contrast, the current scheme where the cursor doesn't change turns
the whole drag-and-drop editing feature into a frustrating mess. First,
you have to _guess_ how long you have to hold down the mouse button,
and if you get it wrong you have to go back and do it again. Very
frustrating, and at that point you've already lost any ease-of-use gain
over simple copy and paste. Then, even if you do get the pause right,
you end up dragging with the cursor still looking like an insertion
cursor, which just feels terribly wrong.
Is there some technical reason why the cursor can't change the way it
used to?
I note that there is some animosity about the whole concept of
drag-and-drop editing among people who didn't come to OS X via OS 9; it
almost leads me to believe in a conspiracy theory, like some of the
engineers that came over from Next said "Hey, if these Mac OS guys
insist on this drag and drop editing, let's make it as clumsy as
possible so everyone can see how stupid the whole concept is!"
Well, that seems rather unlikely, but at the very least I think the
implementers don't really believe in the feature or else they would be
able to grok that without the cursor feedback this feature is almost
unusable in practice.
- Dennis D.
On Thursday, October 17, 2002, at 11:43 PM, David Remahl wrote:
The *reason* it (the delay in click-wait) is insane is because there
is
absolutely no reason to it! What is the purpose of the delay other
than to
piss everybody off? Either have it enabled or disabled, the delay
makes no
sense.
There is a reason. When you click and drag in a selected text block,
there
are two potential intentions.
1) You want to drag the text.
2) You want to start a new selection at the point where you start the
drag,
and end it somewhere else.
If you make a mistake in a selection, and select too much, then there
is a
pretty good chance that you are after (2).
It really _is_ a matter of preference.
/ Rgds, David
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