A modest defense of the rodent
So, Emacs and the mouse. This is an unexpectedly contentious topic, with discussions that end, at best, with careless dismissal. More often they turn into arguments with folks talking past one another.
The advantages of using the mouse for common actions in Emacs are immediate and obvious. Window selection is a natural extension of basic mouse usage. Resizing windows is a snap. Context (right-click) menus See context-menu-mode.
Unfortunately it is uniquely difficult to make any nuanced point about
mouse usage because of the inertial pull of the decades old keyboard
vs mouse argument, and the equally vapid “use both” argument. Talking
about Acme’s design would have derailed things further.
I agree. The “keyboard warriors” always stick in their nose to boast
about their keyboard-only workflow and how it is so-fast, etc.,
etc. while completely miss the point being made. I have seen this
trend far too many times. OTOH, I am too biased to see acme not get
the treatment (that I think) it deserves. :P
I wasn’t advocating for mouse-friendly interfaces at all, by the
way.
Ah, by linking the “help” paper, I was hoping to make a point that
having a fluid workflow that relies on the mouse is possible. Since
every argument preaches that using the mouse introduces friction…
My goal was only to point out that (i) there are times when using
the mouse with Emacs is natural, although the specifics depend on your
use of Emacs, and (ii) Emacs includes some features to improve mouse
expressivity (gestures, configurable drag-and-drop, etc.)
As a pretty mouse-heavy user myself [1], I agree. Using the mouse is
simply better for certain tasks and I wrote a “cry-for-help” myself a
while back [2] to see if I can improve my mouse usage in Emacs. To
this effect, I ended up writing a (hacky) minor mode that implements
acme’s tags but I could never bend Emacs’ window management to my will
and eventually stopped working on it once my mouse was stolen. :-(
[ Without a scroll wheel that is easy to press, that workflow is
annoying. ]
The first response I give to people who ask about window switching,
I say to turn on mouse-autoselect-window and use the mouse.
I agree. The “keyboard warriors” always stick in their nose to boast about their keyboard-only workflow and how it is so-fast, etc., etc. while completely miss the point being made. I have seen this trend far too many times. OTOH, I am too biased to see acme not get the treatment (that I think) it deserves. :P
Ah, by linking the “help” paper, I was hoping to make a point that having a fluid workflow that relies on the mouse is possible. Since every argument preaches that using the mouse introduces friction…
As a pretty mouse-heavy user myself [1], I agree. Using the mouse is simply better for certain tasks and I wrote a “cry-for-help” myself a while back [2] to see if I can improve my mouse usage in Emacs. To this effect, I ended up writing a (hacky) minor mode that implements acme’s tags but I could never bend Emacs’ window management to my will and eventually stopped working on it once my mouse was stolen. :-(
[ Without a scroll wheel that is easy to press, that workflow is annoying. ]