[Etoys] Jiggling the mouse

[Yoshiki Ohshima]

At Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:37:39 +0530,
K. K. Subramaniam wrote:
> 
> [1  <text/plain; utf-8 (7bit)>]
> Hi,
> 
> Yesterday, I watched a 7-year old girl use Etoys to assemble a face using 
> ellipses and rectangles. Sometimes, the rotation center had to be changed 
> from the default for embed ops (e.g. ears). I had taught her to bring up the 
> halo menu and and use the red menu button to turn on the direction handle. 
> She discovered that moving the rotate button leaves behind the direction 
> handle and preferred to use it. When the rotate button is used, the direction 
> handles appear and stays on even when the rotation ends with the original 
> heading.
> 
> My initial reaction was to make a note to file a trac ticket. But then, 
> watching the ease with which she used the rotate button to bring up the 
> direction handle and move it around, I realized this jiggle gesture comes 
> easily and naturally than shift click for children. Jiggle the dup button to 
> get a sibling, jiggle the color button to get a property sheet and so on.

  An interesting idea!

> BTW, I made a one-liner fix to use simple drag (instead of shift-drag) for 
> moving direction handles. If others can try this out and find it useful, I 
> will file a ticket for its inclusion in Etoys.

  Yes, I am still often caught for not pressing the shift-key so it
would be useful.  But there may be some reasons for it to be in that
way that I'm not aware of...  Scott?

-- Yoshiki