MacOS was based on the same premise, it seems - at least originally: the keyboard was to be used only as a tool for typing characters into a text widget; navigation, selection, etc. all were to be done using the mouse.
It was a popular idea at the time. In fact, Acme is a clone of the user interface of Oberon OS. The difference (from the Mac) was, while the mouse as designed by Apple had only one button, Oberon and Acme required three buttons and the user's ability to press some of them simultaneously (termed "chords").
While I find the Plan 9's (and Inferno's) window system elegant and useful, with the need to be able to use the mouse pervasively and in such an intricate way, these OS and editors seem to have jumped the shark.
I think the mouse is a dead end - but I think interactive Gui with pen and touch input are not. I recall there's been studies that show editing with the mouse is faster/more efficient than keyboard/modal-driven editing - and even as an avid Vi(m) user I can believe that.
But I while the mouse is dangerous (due to rsi) and limiting (five fingers become 1 to 3ish buttons) - I don't think the keyboard is the best we can do either.
I actually think the direction Ms is taking with surface and wheel is very interesting.
And for a while, I've believed an acme inspired (multi)touch&pen interface is likely to be a good way to take user interaction a step further.
I lean towards this, but I've never seen anything that suggests it is more than a (possibly wrong) intuition. If Starcraft players can do 200 actions per minute, what suggests the mouse is the limiting factor?
I'd suspect we spend more time processing what we are going to do than we do actually doing it. I often find myself pausing to think about how to get the right layout I want in i3, but if I just could drag some windows around, it'd be done.
The mouse is very intuitive, that's probably why Jobs got stuck on it. It's hard to get much more "natural language" than literally using text to control actions as Acme does.
I switched from vi to acme a few years ago after watching this video, and I'm still happy with my choice. It took me a while to figure acme out, but it has some killer features like:
- files and command line sessions are both just windows. You can split, move them, and EDIT (including output from CLI commands) anything you want. This feels much more natural than having a dedicated run section in the editor or using a separate terminal (that obviously can't be split next to a file window).
- a really short list of commands it supports (very little to memorize). But since it's so easy to interact with acme through the filesystem, you can easily customize your own workflow. For example I wrote https://github.com/mjibson/aw which is a web interface to Go's guru. But there are at least 2 other acme interfaces to guru, both with different methods of interaction, depending on what the author preferred. Overall I like this a lot more than memorizing a pile of vi shortcut keys.
- manipulating text is pretty fast with the mouse + acme's chords and the esc key.
- right click to search or go to file:line is much more powerful than you expect.
[+] [-] henesy|8 years ago|reply
More acme info at http://acme.cat-v.org
Acme has a cousin, sam: http://sam.cat-v.org
[+] [-] pjmlp|8 years ago|reply
http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/index.html
http://doc.cat-v.org/inferno/
Anyone trying Plan 9 ideas is missing out not trying its last iteration.
[+] [-] aaron-lebo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x445442|8 years ago|reply
If you look at some of the white papers, Pike starts with assertions that the mouse must be a front and center input mechanism. I reject the premise.
I'd argue pushing as much functionality to the keyboard and using natural language to interact is more productive in the long run.
[+] [-] Koshkin|8 years ago|reply
It was a popular idea at the time. In fact, Acme is a clone of the user interface of Oberon OS. The difference (from the Mac) was, while the mouse as designed by Apple had only one button, Oberon and Acme required three buttons and the user's ability to press some of them simultaneously (termed "chords").
While I find the Plan 9's (and Inferno's) window system elegant and useful, with the need to be able to use the mouse pervasively and in such an intricate way, these OS and editors seem to have jumped the shark.
[+] [-] e12e|8 years ago|reply
But I while the mouse is dangerous (due to rsi) and limiting (five fingers become 1 to 3ish buttons) - I don't think the keyboard is the best we can do either.
I actually think the direction Ms is taking with surface and wheel is very interesting.
And for a while, I've believed an acme inspired (multi)touch&pen interface is likely to be a good way to take user interaction a step further.
[+] [-] aaron-lebo|8 years ago|reply
I'd suspect we spend more time processing what we are going to do than we do actually doing it. I often find myself pausing to think about how to get the right layout I want in i3, but if I just could drag some windows around, it'd be done.
The mouse is very intuitive, that's probably why Jobs got stuck on it. It's hard to get much more "natural language" than literally using text to control actions as Acme does.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mjibson|8 years ago|reply
- files and command line sessions are both just windows. You can split, move them, and EDIT (including output from CLI commands) anything you want. This feels much more natural than having a dedicated run section in the editor or using a separate terminal (that obviously can't be split next to a file window).
- a really short list of commands it supports (very little to memorize). But since it's so easy to interact with acme through the filesystem, you can easily customize your own workflow. For example I wrote https://github.com/mjibson/aw which is a web interface to Go's guru. But there are at least 2 other acme interfaces to guru, both with different methods of interaction, depending on what the author preferred. Overall I like this a lot more than memorizing a pile of vi shortcut keys.
- manipulating text is pretty fast with the mouse + acme's chords and the esc key.
- right click to search or go to file:line is much more powerful than you expect.
[+] [-] thatmiddleway|8 years ago|reply
Tmux can do that pretty easily!
[+] [-] AgentEpsilon|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carussell|8 years ago|reply
1. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/plan9port-dev/OqSvUD...
2. https://github.com/9fans/plan9port/issues/79
[+] [-] Crontab|8 years ago|reply
A search for Plan9Port brought up the Github page for me.
[+] [-] jrs95|8 years ago|reply