[Frederico]

Originally posted by CubeWannaB:
So you're not biased. Excellent.

I see. Expertise is equated with bias here. Whereas your total lack of expertise and ability only to quote the (questionable) work of others equates with definitive conclusive evidence in support of your opinion, in defiance of others experience. As long as I know the rules. (;

Originally posted by CubeWannaB:

I wonder, even in windows, isn't it a sign of weakness in the UI to have to rely on menu navigation to access such a frequently used function?

Certainly, it would be, if it were the case that keystroke shortcuts did not exist along with the ability to navigate. Indeed, assuming both have a more or less equal amount of menu-less keystrokes to perform comparable operations, isn't the OS that provides a more ergonomic, efficient manner of accessing said menus, in addition to using a pointing device, the better learning tool towards the end goal? After all, don't most of us learn keystrokes by seeing them listed in the menus that we are too frequently reaching for the mouse to access, thus taking focus way form the work at hand?

The greatest irony of your rhetorically intended question above is that you bear witness to our point that mousing to menus is inferior and inefficient compared to keystrokes for frequently accessed, or even infrequently accessed commands.

Lest I'm not clear, here, I'm a Mac fanatic, but I'm not afraid to point out features found elsewhere that are advantageous and would be fine inclusions to the Mac OS.

Cheers

[oscerzo]

I never would have guessed mousing is faster than the keyboard, but I think CubeWannaB is right!

You guys can all test this for yourselves, here's what I did:

Turn on the Keyboard Viewer in the Input Menu of the International System Preference. Select Show Keyboard Viewer from the International Keyboard Menu (the flag menu that was now added, if it was not already there).

(In Jaguar, you can launch the Keyboard Viewer from within the Applications/Utilities Folder.)

Launch your favorite word processing app and type, err, I mean, mouse away.

My typing with the keyboard was around 80 words a minute, but with the mouse, clicking away on the actual letters one at a time, I am sustaining over 130WPM!!!

This is proof that the mouse is much faster than the keyboard!

Thank-you CubeWannaB for opening our eyes!

[DigitalDNA]

IMO, keyboard is definately faster than the mouse but only when its something you do repetively/routinely and you have the keypress memorized. To that end, I can't count the number of times I'm in a program and do something once using the mouse and menus because the process is new and I don't know the keypress only to find out there is not shortcut listed beside it so when I need to do this process over and over again I have to mouse back to the menus every time. Very annoying!

Lack of shortcuts is just programmer laziness in individual programs. I know, I've been there before and you're more busy implementing concepts rather than making sure your users have shortcut keys. Additionally, unless a standard such as CTRL-C for or copy CTRL-E for center is followed universally, it's a real pain. I still remember the days when CTRL-C used to be center and then that was used for copying and you had to use CTRL-E. Took me forever to get out of the habit.

[CubeWannaB]

Originally posted by Frederico:
I see. Expertise is equated with bias here.

Expertise and bias are not opposites, so in suggesting you have a bias I am not questioning your expertise. To be unbiased you would have had to shown evidence that you have researched both mousing and keyboard options. You showed evidence that your livelihood depends on keyboarding and that, while definitely extensive experience with the keyboard, suggests a strong bias.

Lest I'm not clear, here, I'm a Mac fanatic, but I'm not afraid to point out features found elsewhere that are advantageous and would be fine inclusions to the Mac OS.

I haven't once said this is a feature that mac OS shouldn't include. I have mearly shown the reason why it has not been included. Apple has reasons for not including the feature much like they have reasons for not including two button mice with their computers.

[rfattaleh]

i like to use menu master and deja menu

not use if others have mentioned both

[RAMdrd]

...though it offers "True Facts" that if ignored would presume to reduce one to a religious warrior.

The premise that mousing menus is unequivocally faster than keyboarding is of course incorrect. That $50 million resulted in findings of averages yet is offered as an absolute.

The R&D results are biased towards user vs. menu access method, yet purport to compare access method vs. access method. The findings do not support the statement:

Research has shown that mouse naigvation is faster than keyboard navigation even though users will repeatedly state the opposite.

The user is probably the biggest and most significant factor, yet the access method is given less importance in the conclusion.

Without knowing the research parameters, the research seems to show that many users of average experience will accomplish a menu item driven task faster with a mouse. The reasons offered make much sense. Trying to remember a short cut can certainly increase the time from the beginning to the completion of the task.

However, this does not address the comparative efficiency of the two methods, but the user implementation of both methods. Much emphasis is placed on the "two seconds" required to recall a shortcut and its disassociation of the original project as opposed to the "simple" task of reaching for a mouse. This is supposed to offset the time involved on the process of acquiring the mouse, and selecting the menu item.

As proof that the mouse is superior to keyboarding, that research in lacking. But it would seem to show that those who are not very familiar with keyboard shortcuts could possibly improve their time by reaching for the mouse.

As to the statement that Hence, users achieve a significant productivity increase with the mouse in spite of their subjective experience., again this is best a generalization that lacks some required qualification.

I have not claimed to have done $50 million in R&D, so I have no authority to offer. Those who have done so will believe their R&D is not is error.

[ElRay]

Originally posted by TimBray:
That Tog study is deeply flawed. Go read it carefully. They talk about surveying across a wide class of menu operations - no details about what they were. Well across a wide range, of course, the mouse wins every time. For the special most-common case where you know where you want to go and which menu it's on, it is simply not believable that the mouse is faster than the keyboard.

Of course Apple thinks they don't have to think about it, they wave the Tog study and claim the debate is over.

Go back and re-read the study. It's you that missed the point. The point of FKA it to access "a wide class of menu operations" (in this case, all of them), so the comparison is perfectly valid. There is no need for FKA, because FKA is slower than mouse use. This is not equivalent to saying that short cut keys should not be provided for the most commonly used tasks. The study does state that application authors should allow users to be able to define their own shortcut keys.

The real problems here are that M$ didn't provide the ability to add a shortcut key to "Paste styles" (in violation of Apple's UI guidelines) and/or the OP is insentient on using the totally un-Mac like press and release Alt (remember that's different than holding down the Alt key and pressing one ore more other keys at the same time and then releasing them all simultaneously), and then press 'E' and then press 'P' and then press 'T' and then press Return (oops, that's actually: Alt, then E, then S, then T and finally Return -- 'P' for Paste and 'F' for Format make too much sense.) instead of a single keypress Cmd-Opt-V, Cmd-Ctrl-V, Whatever makes sense to him, etc.

[schalliol]

No no, the big point is that there are applications for both. I use the mouse a WHOLE lot and it's great for looking up uncommon tasks, though when I know I'm going to have to do something a lot, a keystroke can be much faster. Each have their own advantages and I agree that I'd prefer to have a mouse over a keyboard (if I didn't need to type passages) if that were the only option. Each are faster in different circumstances. The point then is that it would be great to have expanded features for the keyboard.

Originally posted by schalliol:
No no, the big point is that there are applications for both. I use the mouse a WHOLE lot and it's great for looking up uncommon tasks, though when I know I'm going to have to do something a lot, a keystroke can be much faster. Each have their own advantages and I agree that I'd prefer to have a mouse over a keyboard (if I didn't need to type passages) if that were the only option. Each are faster in different circumstances. The point then is that it would be great to have expanded features for the keyboard.

I think here is the main point - the mouse is faster for less commonly used tasks. If it is a task you use repeatedly, then there should be a keystroke for it, not an alt-menu key, item key. Apple puts single key shortcuts in for that reason. You can actually change them with ResEdit or InterfaceBuilder, if you like.

But one thing I'm surprised hasn't been brought up is the position of the menu bar on Windows. On Windows it isn't at the top, and uses smaller fonts to name the menus. It is a lot slower to access menus on Windows with a mouse, than on a Mac. On a Mac there is an infinitely tall menu to click - you can slam your mouse to the top of the screen as fast as you want. You can't do this on Windows or you'll miss the menu - you have to move the mouse slowly. Also the font on the Mac menu bar gives you a bigger left-right target. I won't even get into how much mouse tracking is better on the Mac. But all of that makes Windows users perceive keyboard access to be much quicker than the mouse for all menu commands. On Windows, it may be quicker if you know where you are going.

[schalliol]

I think you have it on the difference between when it's more efficient using a mouse or keyboard. I don't think that the placement of menus on Windows is as good as it is on a Mac. I do think that using the keyboard on windows can make accessing some menus faster.

[schalliol]

This is still necessary, so I'm bumping nearly two years later to see if anyone knows of a way to get this accomplished.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by schalliol

This is still necessary, so I'm bumping nearly two years later to see if anyone knows of a way to get this accomplished.

I haven't read the thread, and I'd frankly be amazed if someone hadn't pointed this out already in the thread, but since you bumped it I'll point this out anyway.

1. Hit Control-F2 (you can reassign this in the Keyboard pref pane)

2. Type the first few letters of the menu you want (for example, for the Edit menu, typing an "e" would usually get it - if there was another menu that started with "e", you could type "ed" etc.)

3. Hit the return key

4. Now type the first few letters of the menu item you want (e.g. "cu" for cut)

5. Hit return

Voilà!

[PER3]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

I haven't read the thread, and I'd frankly be amazed if someone hadn't pointed this out already in the thread, but since you bumped it I'll point this out anyway.

1. Hit Control-F2 (you can reassign this in the Keyboard pref pane)

2. Type the first few letters of the menu you want (for example, for the Edit menu, typing an "e" would usually get it - if there was another menu that started with "e", you could type "ed" etc.)

3. Hit the return key

4. Now type the first few letters of the menu item you want (e.g. "cu" for cut)

5. Hit return

Voilà!

Someone did mention it before and early in the thread. The author lookmark was as amazed as CharlesS that nobody had mentioned it before.

I wonder if anyone will actually read it this time around?

From August 2003:

Originally Posted by lookmark

I can't believe no one's mentioned this so far (did I miss it?), but *much* better full keyboard access is being implemented in Panther, including:

- built-in customizable keyboard shortcuts, for basic hot keys and customizing any menu command in applications (including changing current ones)

and

- much better keyboard navigation, including the ability to access a menu item by hitting a F2 (or control-M, or a user-defined key), then the letter of the menu, and then the letter of the menu item. For menu item names that begin with the same letter, you just need to type the first several letters in brisk sequence, e.g. "P" for Page Setup, "Pr" for Print.

I hear Full Keyboard Access is now turned on by default as well. Who knows, this could change.

Not 100% as keyboard-friendly as those ugly little underlines in Windows, but IMO very nicely thought-out and pretty darn close.

[schalliol]

Wonderful tone…Of course I read the thread.

This is certainly better, but not at all what's noted in the request. The paste special example now works as:

control-f2,e,return,paste s,t,return (13 keypresses)
versus
alt,e,s,t,return (5 keypresses)

That means in OS X it takes more than twice the key presses...

[dimmer]

I don't know if Apple could really do this: the applications already written would need to "know" about the keyboard shortcuts and I don't see how you could retrofit that. It could be made a new feature for new apps, but how useful would that be?

Lotus 1-2-3 for Mac handled this pretty well, and even had a mini-window that showed the old DOS/Windows menu bar to keep the accountants happy!

QuickKeys may be your best bet, but it'll take a lot of customization to get it to where you'd like.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by schalliol

control-f2,e,return,paste s,t,return (13 keypresses)
versus
alt,e,s,t,return (5 keypresses)

That means in OS X it takes more than twice the key presses...

Why don't you just press ⌥⇧⌘V?

[solecist]

Oh shoot who turned a perfectly good thread into an argument?

I'm using keyboard access from my BT keyboard reclining in my chair so I don't have to hunch over my laptop. Ergonomically refreshing - until I have to post a picture in my blog, or other 'button' in Safari - is there any way to make the enter key NOT enter the form when using keyboard access? Its handy in generic web-usage, but when I"m naviaging with the keyboard it doesn't work at all

So for my blog, I can tab into the buttons, but can't 'submit' them without a mouseclick because the enter response is to submit the whole form - which posts the blog entry. I hope this makes sense as an explanation.

[Wiskedjak]

Wow ... I can't believe I've never seen this thread!

One of my related annoyances is that MacOS doesn't let users control confirmation popup messages (ie: "The application ... has unexpectedly quit", "Do you want to save changes") with the keyboard. You can hit "enter" to go with the default, but to switch buttons you must use the mouse. Windows allows you to switch buttons using arrow keys or to press a key representing the buttons you want ('Y' for yes, 'C' for cancel, etc) ... far more usable in my opinion.

[Person Man]

never mind

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Wow ... I can't believe I've never seen this thread!

One of my related annoyances is that MacOS doesn't let users control confirmation popup messages (ie: "The application ... has unexpectedly quit", "Do you want to save changes") with the keyboard. You can hit "enter" to go with the default, but to switch buttons you must use the mouse. Windows allows you to switch buttons using arrow keys or to press a key representing the buttons you want ('Y' for yes, 'C' for cancel, etc) ... far more usable in my opinion.

I hate to keep an ancient thread up top, but there are two ways to do this:

1) with FKA active, press the tab key to switch between buttons and space to select the one with the blue highlight ring around it, or
2) Escape has always been the default key for cancelling an action (since Mac OS 7 at least, probably much earlier), command-S for save, command-D for don't save, etc.

[schalliol]

I still hope that 10.5 offers a full keyboard menu access system that's more efficient to use than the current, and frankly more like Windows'. If people don't like it, they should be able to just not use it (or even turn it off).