rotate button sucks on the XO

[pgf at laptop.org]

eben wrote:
 > 
 > Start with the most basic, and build up.  There's a limited set of
 > buttons there; that's something to be dealt with.  Video game consoles
 > have done a pretty good job with similar limitations.  At least in the
 > 90s they did.  These days they've caved in to many more buttons.

game consoles also had/have reliable buttons.  i find that
fine-grained control of direction, or even of number of actual
presses, is nearly impossible with the d-pad -- that's why i came
up with the toothpick mod.  that helps a lot, but it's still not
perfect.  (in contrast, the individual check/circle/etc buttons
work fine.)

i have no problem with the idea of creating good APIs for doing
navigation with the bezel controls.  but like david, i think
that currently neither olpc nor sugarlabs is going to foster or
champion their use:  olpc has no resources for s/w development,
and as far as i can tell, sugarlabs is targeting other h/w
platforms just as strongly as the XO -- and other platforms don't
have these screen issues.

in any case, so far i've heard no good argument against rotating
the touchscreen to match the screen.  it may not be the most
convenient way to use or hold the laptop, but it would be better than
the current situation where screen rotation makes the touchpad
almost completely useless.

(btw, i would _love_ it if Browse sprouted a prev-link/next-link/
follow-link/back-to-previous interface, for arrow key control,
just like lynx or elinks has.  it would be faster to use than the
touchpad in most cases even in regular laptop orientation.)

paul
=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf at laptop.org