win8 Thoughts: Windows 8 should have eliminated the legacy right click menu.

[Dot Matrix]

Move mouse farther. Job much harder. Applies for ANY screen size. It's just as true on my 10'' as it is on my 30''. More travel time is bad. More travel time is ALWAYS bad. More travel time is ALWAYS NOT good. More travel time is bad in small screens. More travel time is bad in medium screens. More travel time is bad in large screens.

Sounds like you hate the mouse all together. Maybe touch is in your future?

[phailyoor]

Sounds like you hate the mouse all together.

Sounds like you love moving your mouse around a lot. You love the feeling of giving your wrist aerobic excersise. You love that your mouse wielding arm can be so much stronger because your new OS gives it so much more work to do. You love the fact that controls are purposely placed far apart so that you can have the pleasure of moving your mouse pointer all the way across your screen(whatever its size) to click it. You love watching your mouse cursor travel in a "digitally authentic" arc across the screen, instead of having to click a nearby control. You love the feeling of sliding your mouse across the mousepad, as the soft, textured surface brushes against your skin, a feeling that you never would have felt had the designers located the clickables closer. You love the way that the texture surface on your laptop trackpad feels on your fingertip as it glides across. You love that you can spend more time skating your finger across your trackpad bacause the things you need to click are farther away.

I on the other hand, want to get my mouse tracking and clicking done as fast as possible, because I have things to do afterwards.

[Dot Matrix]

Sounds like you love moving your mouse around a lot. You love the feeling of giving your wrist aerobic excersise. You love that your mouse wielding arm can be so much stronger because your new OS gives it so much more work to do. You love the fact that controls are purposely placed far apart so that you can have the pleasure of moving your mouse pointer all the way across your screen(whatever its size) to click it. You love watching your mouse cursor travel in a "digitally authentic" arc across the screen, instead of having to click a nearby control.

I move around quite alot, actually. I'm always moving my wrist or arms, as I have my school books stored on a shelf above my monitors.

But correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds as if this comes down to a case of being lazy. You honestly sound like you just want to be lazy and have everything come to your mouse, instead of your mouse going to it? Hate to break it to you, but that's impossible.

I'm not sure about you, but it takes a slight bend in my wrist to move my cursor across my 22 inch monitor and beyond. I run two monitors. I am full prepared to deal with increased travel time. It doesn't bother me, and quite frankly, it was to be expected. There is no getting around it. Your cursor moves. That's what it was designed to do: to move. Unfortunately, this paradigm was designed when we had small monitors with small resolutions. Quite the design flaw, isn't it? Why do you think there's a big push towards touch and other new technologies?

[phailyoor]

I move around quite alot, actually. I'm always moving my wrist or arms, as I have my school books stored on a shelf above my monitors.

But correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds as if this comes down to a case of being lazy. You honestly sound like you just want to be lazy and have everything come to your mouse, instead of your mouse going to it? Hate to break it to you, but that's impossible.

I'm not sure about you, but it takes a slight bend in my wrist to move my cursor across my 22 inch monitor and beyond. I run two monitors. I am full prepared to deal with increased travel time. It doesn't bother me, and quite frankly, it was to be expected. There is no getting around it. Your cursor moves. That's what it was designed to do: to move. Unfortunately, this paradigm was designed when we had small monitors with small resolutions. Quite the design flaw, isn't it?

Can you understand that moving MORE is worse? Version A of some software only requires a small mouse movement to do an action. Version B requires a large movement of the mouse to do the same action. For both, the precison required is the same. Which software makes it easier for the user to perform said action?

P.S.

Maybe you should have your mechanic disable your power steering and brakes. Or are you too lazy to use your own strength to control the direction of your car?

[Dashel]

The ignorance Dot shows in regards to mouse travel simply compounds itself with this absurd idea (that also isn't inline with Metro guidelines either). What is the fatal flaw you are trying to fix again?

You can put your fingers in your ears and blame 'large' monitor users all you want but it is a compounded problem. You don't unify devices by dumbing them down to the least common/imprecise denominator. It doesn't matter what size screen you have with the current context menu. If you double your resolution, at most, you will have an extra .5" or so to move. Your doubling down on Metro's inefficiency only exaggerates this. Metro amplifies all cursor travel based on resolution. The bigger the monitor, the more inefficient it becomes so tell me again, how is this progress for the vast majority of users (ie desktop/laptop).

[Dot Matrix]

The ignorance Dot shows in regards to mouse travel simply compounds itself with this absurd idea (that also isn't inline with Metro guidelines either). What is the fatal flaw you are trying to fix again?

You can put your fingers in your ears and blame 'large' monitor users all you want but it is a compounded problem. You don't unify devices by treating dumbing them down to the least common/imprecise denominator. It doesn't matter what size screen you have with the current context menu. If you double your resolution, at most, you will have an extra .5" or so to move. Your doubling down on Metro's inefficiency only exaggerates this. Metro amplifies all cursor travel based on resolution. The bigger the monitor, the more inefficient it becomes so tell me again, how is this progress for the vast majority of users (ie desktop/laptop).

How am I blaming the monitor? I'm not. I'm simply arguing that larger resolutions are not to be blamed for OS design features that require more mouse movement.

People want to cling to the mouse, yet want to complain about more mouse movement. It's a no win scenario. You have to move your mouse. It's what it was designed for.

[phailyoor]

How am I blaming the monitor?

It's not an excuse. You want a bigger monitor with a bigger resolution? Than deal with it. No matter what OS you use, you're going to have increased travel time.

Case and point: In Windows 7, you close and app, and drag your cursor back down to the taskbar/Start Menu. Or you simply move around an open app. Etc.... I guess that makes Windows 7 a broken OS now.

What are you trying to say? Again, cursor travel be damned. If someone wants to own a ginormous monitor, they should be able to deal with the consequences, and be fully aware that cursor travel increases no matter what. You wanted a huge monitor, now it's time to deal with it. It's not an excuse. There are ways to decrease your cursors travel time. Jack up your tracking for starters.

Yes moving the mouse is a necessity. That's what it is designed for. But maybe if a UI is designed to minimize mouse movement, then users will be more productive? On the other hand, if a UI is designed deliberately where more mous movement is necessary, maybe productivity will go down?

[RottGutt]

Removing the "right-click" menu would only **** it up more than it already is. Windows 8 is already a big step backwards from Windows 7.

[Dot Matrix]

Removing the "right-click" menu would only **** it up more than it already is. Windows 8 is already a big step backwards from Windows 7.

Again, I'm not removing them. Just simply moving them into a slide out menu that would match what is already found in Windows 8.

[ShMaunder]

Is it possible to quickly hack a file (or registry) so the right click context menu appears at the right of the screen? I think Dot needs to test his proposal in real life using more than just Windows Explorer.

I'm a bad speller and I couldn't image the amount of times I would have to move my mouse on a word processor to correct an entire document.

[phailyoor]

Again, I'm not removing them. Just simply moving them into a slide out menu that would match what is already found in Windows 8.

Do you understand that more mouse tracking takes more time? Here's a challenge. Pin the first ten start screen items to the taskbar. Do the same with the first ten items in the start menu in Windows 7. Reflect. If you don't understand, grab a stopwatch and repeat the process, except this time timing how long it takes. Reflect. Post results.

My results:

Start menu:25 seconds

Start screen:12 seonds

[Calum Veteran]

[. . .]

I'm a bad speller and I couldn't image the amount of times I would have to move my mouse on a word processor to correct an entire document.

Perhaps there should be some kind of right-click context menu for those instances only (similar to the context menu in the "Metro" Internet Explorer in Windows 8), rather than for those instances and the instances in which it's unneeded?

[Dot Matrix]

Is it possible to quickly hack a file (or registry) so the right click context menu appears at the right of the screen? I think Dot needs to test his proposal in real life using more than just Windows Explorer.

I made a quick video emulating Win+I with my mouse using a macro and Keyboard and Mouse center. When I boot into Windows 7 next, I'll upload it and post it.

As for your spelling, Word already utilizes a popout menu as soon as you highlight a word or phrase.

[Dashel]

MetroIE is a perfectly example of how some RT apps already don't play by the rules, but provides a better experience because of it. I am optimistic however that they will add this across Metro at large down the road - which will confirm how wrongheaded this brainfart of an idea is.

How am I blaming the monitor? I'm not. I'm simply arguing that larger resolutions are not to be blamed for OS design features that require more mouse movement.

People want to cling to the mouse, yet want to complain about more mouse movement. It's a no win scenario. You have to move your mouse. It's what it was designed for.

Those design features are clearly to be blamed if they result in demonstrable inefficiency of the most common control device, which they do. The larger display you have, the worse it gets. The current solution DOES NOT exhibit this limitation. That is the a bloody idiotic assertion and false dichotomy all in one, bravo.

So again, what design flaw are you trying to overcome? If the 'mouse' is the design flaw, how is making it worse progress? That is why MS's claim of Fitt's is disingenuous as a justification for hot corners. Just admit it, since you are the lowest common denominator, you want an OS that fits you.

[ShMaunder]

Perhaps there should be some kind of right-click context menu for those instances only (similar to the context menu in the "Metro" Internet Explorer in Windows 8), rather than for those instances and the instances in which it's unneeded?

Not sure about that. I think the idea of this proposal was to make everything consistent. It would be a guessing game whether I should start travelling with the mouse towards the right side of the screen once I click etc.

I made a quick video emulating Win+I with my mouse using a macro and Keyboard and Mouse center. When I boot into Windows 7 next, I'll upload it and post it.

I look forward to seeing that. The only way I see this working is making the mouse cursor jump to the menu and back - though jumping back would potentially be confusing to a user if they spend more than a couple of seconds in the menu.

Potentially, you could ghost your current mouse cursor where you right click then a new cursor is created within the menu.

As for your spelling, Word already utilizes a popout menu as soon as you highlight a word or phrase.

I use LibreOffice which current uses only a right click context menu. But yes, they could also implement that functionality to overcome this.

[ShMaunder]

Potentially, you could ghost your current mouse cursor where you right click then a new cursor is created within the menu.

Self quote. Basically some crappy mockup like this (sorry for image resolution):

User confusion with two mouse cursors visible could be bad...

In fact, why would it even need a new mouse cursor. Could just get away with highlighting items on the menu which is controlled via mouse. Some little niffy indicator showing how much further the mouse has to travel before going to the next item.

I'll also edit that I haven't yet thought of why this change is necessary unless you want to use a mouse and touch together :D

Edited September 21, 2012 by ShMaunder

[+Warwagon MVC]

Again, there is nothing "worse" happening here. The slide-outs would have the same functionality, they're just off to the side of whatever screen you click on (If you run more than 1). You're just that against Windows 8 that I think you're arguing for the sake of arguing. You're making it out to be more than what I was conceptualizing.

So after coming back to this thread and thinking this over I have a question.

Lets say the mouse pointer is directly on top of a file. You're saying that it's faster for me to move my mouse to the right corner of the screen and activate the side menu than it is to keep the mouse on top of the file and click the right mouse button?

[Orange Battery]

I think the actual right click action needs to stay available because its so easy to do but it does need some updating. The side menu in the original post screen shot would be good if it had file options and more tagging ability as well.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I think the actual right click action needs to stay available because its so easy to do but it does need some updating. The side menu in the original post screen shot would be good if it had file options and more tagging ability as well.

Actually if I could click a file and slide the menu out from the side on a tablet that sounds awesome. But once again, on a tablet. On a desktop it would be pain the ass.

[MorganX]

I know this increases travel time, but with the way you can increase cursor speed today, it's a non issue. I can can cross my screens with only a slight bend in my wrist.

I hate to go urban on you, but, "U R STR8 TRIPPIN!"

[chrisj1968]

boy talk about alienating users of mice on non touch screens. be happy you got the start button outta there... let's not get greedy.. :rofl:

[ViperAFK]

There's no usability being lost here.

the significantly increased mouse travel time is something I'd definitely consider a usability hit...

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

I'm sure Microsoft is already on it for 'Blue'.

Windows fans now have all their hopes wrapped up in ?Blue,? a set of ?year one? updates to Windows 8 and related platforms that will supposedly right all the wrongs of the original releases

(Blue)

[brainsuck]

Just go back Windows 3.1 no right click on it

[MorganX]

Just go back Windows 3.1 no right click on it

Good one. Go back to Windows 1.0a. Tiled Windows only. Call it snap and we're back to the future. Wait, you could tile as many Windows as you could open, nevermind.