Re: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence -- MIDRANGE-L

Doug,

Most people seem woefully unaware of how much you can (and should <g>) do
using keyboard shortcuts, IMHO.

I agree. When I teach green screen users how to work more efficiently intheir GUI, I show them the difference between field movement keys and cursormovement keys. It is amazing how much impact the lesson of Shift+Tab(BackTab) can have. Of course, this applies to green as well. And, how manypeople know that Alt+DownArrow will show the contents of a list/combocontrol?

Regardless of that, I find that most users use the mouse incorrectly

Without question. However, that is simply because of lack of training. Teachthem how to use a mouse, and their productivity will improve. Even if it issimply to move between the full screen green emulator and their Windowsdesktop applications.

"Easiest" here comes down to a lack of training, like your example ofmoving
your hands from the keyboard to click an OK button.  Is that really
"easier"?

Absolutely true about the training. But, for a user who sees an OK button -for which they KNOW what to do (you click it), it is "easier" for them to gowith that. Trying to teach them to press Enter to activate the OK button isconfusing in that regard.

I had an interesting experience with a green screen user once. We wereimplementing a GUI and he was resisting. He said he could NOT use a mouse. Isaid it was ok, since this particular GUI would work with the exactkeystrokes as his green screen application. He still had some reluctance,but we pressed on. I did ask if he used the internet on his PC at home, andhe said he did. We started the application, and the sign on screen wasdisplayed. There were two entry fields and a "Sign On" button. He typed inhis user name, tabbed, then typed his password. He then grabbed the mouse,and clicked the "Sign On" button. After I stopped laughing, I asked why heclicked the button. He said "because it was there, and that is what you doto a button". I mentioned to him that he might not have a problem with themouse after all, and with that one small step, his resistance to the GUIcompletely disappeared.

Trevor