[Kde-games-devel] ksudoku and kde-games

[Ian Wadham]

From: Burkhard Lehner, Thursday, November 23
> I think the user should be able to use only the
> keyboard, or only the mouse.
> 
I really like the way the keyboard and mouse work
together in the present (released) version of KSudoku.
I can work with one hand on the mouse and one on the
K/B, using the mouse to point, explore and select, and
the K/B to enter numbers.  It is very fast and it is how
the mouse was originally designed to be used, by
Xerox PARC, the inventors of mouse, windows, etc.

On the Xerox Star workstation, there was a block of
special function keys for commonly used operations,
such as Open, Copy, Move, Delete and Properties
and the desktop contained only objects and data (no
program icons).  The mode of operation was: select an
object or some data, press a key and (for Copy/Move)
select another object or data.  Properties gave you a
dialog box for whatever you selected (e.g. for text,
it gave you font properties or for a paragraph, tabs,
etc.).  This simple object-oriented scheme let you:

- Create documents or files (from a blank one).
- Store and retrieve documents and files.
- Send and receive documents and files by email.
- Send documents or files to any print server.
- Create and edit text and graphics.
- Access documents transparently across networks.

All this without any drop-down menus or toolbars
and without having to open a file to Print or SaveAs!

Unfortunately, for reasons of cost, marketing and
legality, Apple and later Microsoft and X Windows,
moved away from this initial simplicity and regressed
to a process-oriented mode of operation.  KDE has
also followed this path.

In MS Windows, for example, the mouse was only an
afterthought (along with security!) and people got
used to memorising long keystroke combinations
(I never did).  Let's restore the mouse to its proper
place in the scheme of things!

Sorry to waffle on, Ian W.