[sugar] [PATCH] #447: grab/scroll key

[Brian Jordan]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Erik Garrison <erik at laptop.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 11:19:46AM -0400, Eben Eliason wrote:
>> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Brian Jordan <brian at laptop.org> wrote:
>> > Brilliant work, Erik! I had a chance to play with your first working
>> > hand scroll, and it's beyond explanation how fun it is to be able to
>> > scroll around using the touchpad without aiming for a gtkScrollBar.
>>
>> Great to hear!  I can't wait to give it a try myself...it's been a
>> long time in coming.
>>
>
> I'll give you a demo tomorrow.
>
>> > For all to consider: there are two grab buttons. What if one tended to
>> > grab + move *objects*, and the other grabs + moves
>> > *scenes/backgrounds*? From what I've heard, kids tend to have a hard
>> > time left-clicking and dragging with their same hand (as with the
>> > touchpad). So, for applications like Browse, both grab buttons could
>> > still just scroll up/down. But for graphical editors (e.g., layout
>> > programs, Physics, Model, anything with a scene and objects), this UI
>> > behavior may be a real time saver and fun to use. This would require
>> > giving applications the ability to process events from these two
>> > scroll buttons in a way that identifies them separately.
>>
>> That's an interesting idea.  However, the reason there are two keys is
>> so that interaction works well for both left- and right-handed users,
>> without the need for them to cross their arms to scroll around.  What
>> we might be able to do, though, is map an SHIFT-HAND shortcut to a
>> drag/drop action instead. (I suggest shift because it's the only
>> modified which is present on both sides of our keyboard, for the same
>> reason as above.)
>>
>
> I like Brian's idea but felt similarly about the difficulty in deciding
> which hand button executes which function.  SHIFT-HAND is a good
> solution, and relatively easy to implement.

Agreed, SHIFT-HAND +1

UI wise, will there be a way to distinguish between SHIFT-HAND and a
regular click? For example, in Physics, I can imagine having
SHIFT-HAND move objects around even if a non-grab tool is selected.

>
>> To make that work well, I think we'll need to manage the display of
>> the cursor appropriately.  perhaps we can use the
>> horizontal/vertical/fleur arrows to indicate scrolling options, switch
>> to the open hand when shift is pressed to indicate drag mode, and
>> switch to a closed hand after a drag has been started.
>>

People always did enjoy the open/closed hand of Adobe Reader. :) I
think this is a fantastic idea.

>
> How is the cursor pixmap currently set?  Is there an existing function
> in the sugar codebase to set the cursor pixmap?
>
> Erik
>