[SDL] SDL_QuartzWM patches

[Max Horn]

Am 17.05.2004 um 02:16 schrieb Sam Lantinga:

>> I've sent in two small patches to SDL_QuartzWM directly to Sam over 
>> the
>> past few months (well, I think I sent both anyway) and neither of them
>> have been implemented.  I didn't receive a response, so I'm sure he 
>> was
>> just busy and/or they got lost, so I decided to sign up to the list 
>> and
>> post them here.
>
> Thanks, I've applied them to CVS.  Sorry I didn't respond earlier, I've
> been busy. :)
>
Hm, I am not sure I exactly agree with that patch being applied. In 
particular:

> Right mouse button emulation is changed from Command-Click to 
> Control-Click, which is how OS X behaves.

While it's true that on the one hand OS uses nowadays Ctrl-Click for 
this, on the other hand we have:
- all SDL games on MacOS and Mac OS X used Cmd-Click so far; if 
developers update to a newer SDL (1.2.8), the behavior of their apps 
would suddenly change. I don't like breaking backward compatibility in 
such a way, even if it means to be a bit more in line with the current 
OS behavior (note that the SDL way predates OS X by a long time :-).

- At least in my experience, most people other than developers don't 
even know about Ctrl-Click anyway. For them, learning to use that combo 
isn't any easier/harder than the other. In fact, only people who (a) 
know about the "right mouse button is ctrl-click" and (b) know that a 
given feature is to be controlled by the right mouse button, will even 
think about using Ctrl-Click. The others hopefully will read in your 
manual/README "To activate feature FOOBAR, press Cmd-Click".

- OTOH, those very same people will be very frustrated if the next 
update suddenly changes the combo

- Many other games use the Cmd-Click convention (which BTW was a 
central reason for the original SDL implementation, I think). E.g. 
virtually all Blizzard games, including StarCraft, Diablo II and 
WarCraft

- A historic reason for Cmd was, BTW, that for a very long time, not 
all Mac keyboards even *had* a ctrl key :-).


In short: in my eyes, the motivation to change to Ctrl-click is rather 
small (I even agree with it from a purists view, and would support it, 
were it a new/obscure feature; as it is, that's not the case). OTOH I 
see a lot of potential irritation with customers coming up...



Bye,

Max