Subject: Re: insert/overwrite mode
From: Dom Lachowicz (cinamod@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 06 2001 - 10:32:12 CST
Hi,
Time for my $0.02 on this...
Hitting the Ins key should enable overwrite mode. Every other application
I've encountered in the universe behaves like this. IMHO it is not confusing
and even a desirable effect. I am very much against anything that will pop
up a dialog to say "Dear god, you hit the Ins key. Did you mean that?" or
even disable the key. You do this and I commit that "paperclip" code that I
have lying around on my HD :) We need to make things useful and
non-consufing for the user but we should not second guess their motives.
One might be able to convince me with enabling/disabling this with a
preference item, provided that it is initially off. But I think that even
that is doubtful. The "Ins|Ovr" in the status bar is a good way to indicate
the change, and really isn't as obscure are you think.
Secretaries (even church secretaries) know how to type and know what this
key does.
Dom
>From: "Tomas Frydrych" To: Martin Sevior CC: abiword-dev@abisource.com
>Subject: Re: insert/overwrite mode Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 08:00:18 -0000
>
>
> > I like these ideas. The box around is quite in your face and would tell
>me > I've accidently pressed the insert key so I should turn it off.
>However > for people who actaully use overstrike mode the line under would
>be less > intrusive though maybe harder to see with underlined text. >
>
>The box is not going to be that straight forward, because the function that
>draws the carret only gets coordinances of a single point; you would have
>to get back to the run to get from it the width of the character at the
>carret and IMO that is too much overhead for something that is needed as
>often as drawing caret. The line under could perhaps be of a fixed width,
>or the carret could be kind of L shape, but that does not give much more of
>a clue to what is happening than an obscure 'OVR' in the status bar.
>
>Perhaps the best thing would be to have a warning dialogue, as you
>suggested, with a checkbox for disabling it in the Preferences. Then we
>could leave the caret as is, or just change its colour.
>
>Tomas
>
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