Grumblings from CADD Cottage, by Noel H. Browning 09/26/97

The 2 Key Logotype: Copyright © 1997 Noel H. Browning

The MicroSoft Windows GUI works pretty well with Word Processing Programs, speeding text revision, etc.but it is not all that productive for Delineators using Design Drafting programs. The usual Windows features demand a great deal of mouse movement and just take up too much screen space. The jerky scroll bars are not needed at all as Drafting programs support all sorts of direct pans and zooms. It is good that the bars are so easy to turn off in Visual CADD. In addition most command icons require removing ones attention from the drawing itself, slowing down the mental design process. This sort of distraction can very well be done without. Two Key Commands are the most direct User Interface and eliminate the need for most Branching Pull-Down Menus and Fly-Out Icons that require moving the mouse cursor outside the immediate drawing area.

There are more than 260 direct 2 Key Commands in Generic CADD 6.1, more than 200 in Visual CADD, and the typical AutoCAD digitizer template has about 200 command selections, but MicroSoft Word 6.0 has only 33 Icon buttons. Just where would you put 260 1/4" x 1/4" small icon buttons on the typical small SVGA screen?

A small CRT screen is about 11 inches wide x 8.25" high, so let’s try 43 x 6 = 258 1/4" icons. O.K. that will require a space on your screen 10.9" wide x 1.8" high or 19.62 Sq. In and accommodate 258 commands. The Program Title Bar, the Pull Down Menu Bar, and the Icon Button Bar at the top of the program screen require 7.15 Sq. In. The Start Bar and the Command Line Bar at the bottom of the screen require 6.05 Sq. In. The two Scroll Bars will take up another 2.87 Sq. In. I sometimes park the Visual CADD 2.1.4 Layer Manager window at the right side of the screen which requires another 1.7" x 5.3" = 9.1 Sq. In area. From a total screen area of 90.75 Sq. In we now have a Drawing window 9" wide x 5.05" high where you may view only 45.45 Sq. In of a 864 Sq. In D-Size drawing at full output scale.

If we turn off those 258 Icons, the scroll bars, and the Layer Manager we now have the maximum size Drawing window area of 76.85 Sq. In. An’ that’s about a 42% improvement on our 14" example SVGA CRT.

Icons work best as pictures of real things and worst attempting to express concepts. Mac and Windows programmers must invent symbols and somehow relate them to abstract concepts. This "hain’t" easy. What symbol would you draw to represent a [Delete] key that would be recognized by others?

Icons are much older and more primitive tools than text. Hieroglyphics used pictures to represent the sound of a word. Alphabets were invented much later in history and for the first time related simple characters to the separate sounds that make up our words. This was the Major breakthrough that made this "Modern" age possible and literacy common. Program commands are, after all, digital words.

You may ask, "Why would anyone use such a small monitor?" Well, I have these special eye-glasses that allow my old eyes to focus on both the keyboard and my screen. I have tried the larger CRT’s but when they are moved back to where the full screen is within my cone of vision they go out of focus. Many PC operators have tried bifocals, but with little success.

File: 2K-04.doc