4 ms·

Oh this thread still exists, yummy. > With the nub, the distance becomes a function of time+accel. On the Pinnacle of Godly Perfection pointing device that is

Oh this thread still exists, yummy. > With the nub, the distance becomes a function of time+accel. On the Pinnacle of Godly Perfection pointing device that is the Thinkpad Trackpoint, which was used to create life the universe and everything along with a lot of perl, it is a function of time+accel+pressure! i.e. the pointer moves faster as you push harder in any direction, like any good analog joystick. Except for the Trackpoint you need only to twitch your index finger the tiniest bits to traverse the whole screen. Might feel weird at first but you get used to it very quickly. Dragging my finger all over the laptop surface is tiring. Same with Mr Mouse. Yes I keep the sensitivity very high.

arghwhat 8y ago
I see that the mortal ThinkNub has falsely led others' to believe that it holds the status of a deity. Mortals are so easily fooled... I included pressure in accel. Yeah, like a joystick, you can just use time held to move across the entire screen, but just like a joystick, it makes using the mouse akin to driving a small RC car around on your screen, trying to park it on the button you want to press. And just like with an RC car, you can miss your target. With tracking pointer devices (touchpad, touchscreen, wacom), with a proper stack (i.e. only touchpad on macs), the mouse becomes your finger, reapplying existing finger dexterity entirely andgiving an extremely intuitive input method. Except for bad touchpad stacks, you don't miss or even need to look. Yes, the touchpad requires full index finger flex/extension to get from one end to the other, but so does moving from "c" to "t" on a QWERTY layout, so I can't see that as a valid complaint. Unless the touchpad has a bad surface texture (i.e. not Apple-style glass), the same goes for fatigue—you're moving your fingers way more when typing. The only downside I can think of for touchpads is that, like mice but unlike ThinkNubs, one must move the hand away from the keyboard to use it in most setups. ThinkNubs are neatly placed near the homerow, although they eat part of the keys as a result. (Mice are a bit in between, as they use shoulder/elbow/wrist to aim, which is far less precise than fingers. They still reuse physical dexterity, but are less precise than finger based tracking inputs. Trackballs and rollers are just weird, though.)

arghwhat 8y ago

I see that the mortal ThinkNub has falsely led others' to believe that it holds the status of a deity. Mortals are so easily fooled... I included pressure in accel. Yeah, like a joystick, you can just use time held to move across the entire screen, but just like a joystick, it makes using the mouse akin to driving a small RC car around on your screen, trying to park it on the button you want to press. And just like with an RC car, you can miss your target. With tracking pointer devices (touchpad, touchscreen, wacom), with a proper stack (i.e. only touchpad on macs), the mouse becomes your finger, reapplying existing finger dexterity entirely andgiving an extremely intuitive input method. Except for bad touchpad stacks, you don't miss or even need to look. Yes, the touchpad requires full index finger flex/extension to get from one end to the other, but so does moving from "c" to "t" on a QWERTY layout, so I can't see that as a valid complaint. Unless the touchpad has a bad surface texture (i.e. not Apple-style glass), the same goes for fatigue—you're moving your fingers way more when typing. The only downside I can think of for touchpads is that, like mice but unlike ThinkNubs, one must move the hand away from the keyboard to use it in most setups. ThinkNubs are neatly placed near the homerow, although they eat part of the keys as a result. (Mice are a bit in between, as they use shoulder/elbow/wrist to aim, which is far less precise than fingers. They still reuse physical dexterity, but are less precise than finger based tracking inputs. Trackballs and rollers are just weird, though.)