Re: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence

["Douglas Handy" <dhandy@xxxxxxxxx>]

Trevor,

Preferring to key is a matter of personal preference, and with modern
> well-designed GUI's, a mouse is not a hindrance. Maybe you need to play
> more
> Solitaire :-)


I think it is more a matter of the task being performed.  I'm not suggesting
somebody use the mouse for Paint or CAD operations.  But if we are talking
about line of business applications which would otherwise be green screen,
they tend to be text oriented.  If you have any alphameric text entry to do
at all, you really need to keep both hands in home typing position to get
any decent text entry speed.  Unless you have users skilled in one of the
one-handed Dvorak keyboard layouts.  :)

If only doing numeric entry, then you may bet by with one hand on a 10-key
pad and the other on the mouse.  But as soon as text entry becomes much of
the equation, having both hands in home typing position is crucial to
productivity.

IMHO, of course.

Maybe you need to play more Solitaire :-)


While Solitaire is good for a very beginning mouse user, Minesweeper does
more for accuracy and speed training.  And for the record, I much prefer to
play Free Cell using the keyboard rather than the mouse.  You can make the
moves *much* faster than with a mouse.  Typically you only need to type 2
digits to move any card to where you want, and that is much faster than
dragging a card around.  And yes, I am also experiened with the mouse.

I agree about the z-index issue. If you happen to BE a keyboard person,
> this
> is frustrating.


If you don't happen to BE a keyboard person, maybe you need to play more
"Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing"  :)

At that point, I attribute that to lack of attention to
> detail by a programmer -


Or lack of knowledge or experience in how keyboard navigation should work.
The point is that just using a GUI does not have to make text entry harder
-- it can make it easier but only if the programmer knows enough to do it
right.  It certainly isn't hard or time consuming to set the z-order or
insert & chars for accelerator keys.


Doug