I always liked the rotary click wheel on many CRT monitors. Nice big wheel with
an offset dimple. Put fingertip in dimple and push to get the menu, spin to
highlight the configuration option then push. Spin again to select (for
example) vertical position then push and spin to move the raster up or down. No
slower (for me it was faster) than a mouse interface with "spin" controls that
scroll a list or change a number. Only took me a few seconds to have a CRT's
image all tweaked. That's why people lamented the loss of the clickwheel on
iPods. It was FAST, easy to use, and didn't need eyes on it to be able to use
it.
My current LCD has five buttons on the back. Only the bottom one (on/off) has a
tiny bump. The other four are ??? and after the menu is brought up, their
positions don't align with the order of the menu selections so one is literally
poking around blindly trying to find what does what. Even a row of clearly
labeled buttons on the front of a monitor was slower than a click wheel. If TV
and monitor designers want a "blind poking" physical interface tucked around on
the back side, they should bring back the click wheel. I have a couple of
Samsung TVs that have, of all things, a tiny joystick *and* some buttons on the
back. Now that is a crazy thing.
On Tuesday, June 1, 2021, 7:38:13 PM MDT, John Dammeyer
<[email protected]> wrote:
Personally I like the tactile feedback of a button that moves. But moving
from buttons over to a mouse to then select entries is tedious so I can see
either a number of buttons or a touch screen for that sort of thing.
For the same reason I really detest those interfaces based on Arduino's that,
due to limited I/O use a rotary knob and button to select from all sorts of
menus. Or worse test enter each digit one at a time using the rotary knob.
Shudder!!!!
Way back HP had the right idea with what they called soft keys. A row of
mechanical buttons along the edges of the screen to select options displayed
beside the button. My Tek scope has those and the stupid rotary knobs.
Invariably since they have two of those I tend to choose the wrong one first.
But to design such a user screen for LinuxCNC implies you also have to provide
the buttons (and maybe a knob). Easy to do with CANopen or ModBus or if you
have one of the high i/o count MESA boards but then you are also running a
bundle of wires up rather than a network cable.
Thanks for the feedback.
John Dammeyer
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