Re: Whats it for?

[a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

noone@nowhere.net wrote:

>Mark Wrote:
>>"I hate track balls with a passion"
>
>Pointing devices are not created equal.  Take for instance the IIgs
>Mouse.  Ugly, square, the ball fits poorly and is very susceptible to
>cursor shift when trying to maneuver the mouse precisely.  I hate that. 
>Very few mice have a ball that seats nicely in the hole with minimum
>'wobble' for good tracking.  I hate the uneven tracking also because it
>causes you to run out of mouse pad frequently and you have to retrace to
>get to the edge of the screen.  Not to mention my desk clutter, I don't
>have room to use the pad, I am left using the papers and everything else
>as a pad.  Yuch.  What sort of bozo invented this?  What we need are
>touch screens so we can point at what we want.  (Get those sticky notes
>off my screen, how can I point at what I can't see?)

    You can vastly improve the IIgs's mouse tracking if you happen to
have a ROM 3. There are five different tracking speeds to choose 
from (compared with only two on the ROM 00/01) and setting it to the
highest level allows you to move the mouse cursor without moving off
your mousepad; for the most part anyway.

    Even on the ROM 00 and 01 it helps to increase the tracking speed,
even if it's just an on/off setting for increased tracking. Even so,
on all three machines there is still the odd screen ratio (about 3:1)
with the GS's 640x200 screen mode which makes tracking awkward.
That is vertically you can sweep the pointer fully up and down with
a very slight movement of your wrist, yet moving horizontally across
requires quite a bit of lifting and dragging (adjusting the tracking
speed helps of course, as mentioned above).

>Track balls are also not created equal.  But with the flick of my index
>finger I can zip the cursor from one side of the screen to the other. 
>This trackball glides smoothly and doesn't shift at all, the base is
>held firmly in place by the weight of the ball.  I absolutely despised
>track balls until I tried a Version 5 Kensington.  It is a much more
>natural feel for my larger hands.  I rest my hand on the front slope and
>move the ball with two fingertips, click using my thumb or pinkie.  I
>never have to move my hand or lift the mouse and retrace on the pad to
>get to the edge of a screen.

    I don't know about trackballs, but I've gotten very accustomed to
the Logitech TrackMan marble on my PC (thumb guided instead of
using your index and adjacent finger). At first I detested it, though
over time got so used to it, now it seems a burden to go back to 
using a standard mouse. That constant dragging and lifting over 
a mouse pad repetitively becomes tiresome.

    One thing I _still_ prefer mice for though is drawing. I hold mice

between my thumb and index finger (much the same way I hold a
pen or pencil) so I have almost the same amount of control over
guiding the mouse movement as moving a pencil across a sheet
of paper. With a trackball or thumb marble your using either your
thumb or index fingers, which aren't exactly ideal for guiding a
pencil. As a good example I can perfectly draw my name in
cursive on screen using a mouse. I can draw smooth and 
flowing curved arcs and lines, essentially sketch on screen. 
Doing the same thing with a trackball or marble just makes a 
mess for the most part.

    Of course even a mouse doesn't have the same control as a
pencil, which is why I rather just get a drawing tablet (or better
yet, scan in traditional pencil sketches on a flatbed scanner)
one of these days and stick with a marble/trackball for routine 
day to day things.

Mitchell Spector
a_specto@alcor.concordia.ca