[roelbondoc]

I spend most of my computing hours using the keyboard 99% of the time. I can completely agree keyboard interfaces are very rewarding.

However, I believe there is "muscle memory" that can be learned using the mouse. For example, playing a lot of first person shooter games in my day, one can learn and memorize the nuances of moving the mouse. Correlating the amount and direction of movement of the mouse with the response of the screen is, I believe, a skill that can be learned and is quite rewarding.

[bad_user]

The way you move the mouse has less to do with how you interact with the interface - yes, you may be able to optimize mouse moves, but that's not enough.

What happens is that a mouse-friendly interface is organized in such a way that finding the right action to click on involves traversing a tree of choices. Even if you memorize the exact location of the action you want in that tree, for many actions you still need several clicks to perform something instead of just one.

And that's not the end of it - you clearly need keyboard input too, in many cases. For example in WYSIWYG editors, you type-type-type, then you need a new header, move your hand on the mouse, select the right header in the select-box (during which your eyes also move from the current line), then get back your hand in typing position and start typing again, until you need another mouse action.

This is the reason I wrote my last resume in HTML and didn't even bother opening office, even though HTML sucks for typography (I'll probably switch to Latex next time).

That said, the mouse is better for browsing around, exploring stuff or for interfaces such as Photoshop. I also don't mind the mouse for interfaces where I don't need to be productive. Someone mentioned CAD in this thread - I disagree as AutoCAD is more productive with keyboard input.

[saraid216]

In an FPS, it's the relative motion of the mouse the matters. That's what the mouse excels at: motion from where it currently is to the DIRECTION you need to go.

Elsewhere, you actually have to click on things. Personally, I find that that takes up a huge amount of cognitive space.

[rapind]

Unrelated, but one of the things with FPS's and such that annoy me the most is that you are required to use the mouse to achieve top efficiency. It would be great if someone made a game or extended the options to allow for better keyboard navigation / aiming. Like key combinations to tweak the interval size for a directional key (speed). I.e. shift+w, alt+w, ctrl/cmmd + w, maybe vim-like w20, etc. Also for increasing turn intervals like 45, 90, 180, and custom degree immediate turns.

[jff]

You used to use the keyboard for all actions in FPS's. The first Quake is an example of this. And it was goddamn terrible, which is why everyone started playing shooters with mice as soon as possible.

Wasn't it back around that same time period that some people also tried playing FPS games with a joystick? Probably would have worked ok for Doom, but I can't see it working as well with anything that allows vertical aiming.

[rapind]

The controls from the original Quake is not what I'm suggesting. Controlling your movement and aim via keybaord right now IS terrible and I'm not disputing that.

What I'd like to see as an experiment is having a much finer grained control over your keyboard sensitivity.

As an example, let's say you have "a" mapped as your left turn (not strafe) key. So pressing and holding "a" gives you the standard movement speed you've come to expect. Pretty terrible.

Now let's say holding shift and pressing "a" gives you a turn speed that's twice as fast. Already this is a pretty significant improvement and offers you some control over you turn speed using only the keyboard.

Now let's add a couple more modifiers; crtl/cmd for 3x speed, alt/opt for 4x speed. Let's also add some new keys for turn 90 degrees, turn 180 degrees, turn 270 degrees, and these are all instant, just like a fast mouse turn.

A mouse still allows for much more granular control when it comes to aiming etc. but for someone who spends to time to really adapt these keys it would close the gap significantly and may even make keyboard aiming / turning a viable option.

I could be completely wrong though and it might just feel terrible, but I'd love to test it out to see.

[seanp2k]

I'm pretty sure that Quake 3 is basically unplayable on my phone because I don't have a mouse. Your suggestion might work fine if you were just shooting stationary targets, but for moving objects, no way.

[vosper]

The difference between FPS mousing and other kinds is that in an FPS the goal is actually to use the mouse as accurately as possible. In most other tasks using the mouse is not actually part of what you're trying to achieve.