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Talking about the avatar as a special case of the objects that might use navigation services, I remember Julian Lombardi saying that his team had integrated the "WASD" keys type of movement, in a similar manner to what many PC games use. In this way, these keyboard keys are used to move around while the mouse is used to point at and select objects.
One of the disconnects in this for me is the difference between looking and pointing. Many PC games just couple looking and pointing together, so that you are always looking directly at what you can select. On the other hand, Croquet Jasmine normally just points, and a special key combination must be used in order to look.
Visualizing a person reaching for an object, their arm can move directly to the object without moving the rest of their body, as long as the object is within the sphere of movement of their arm. If the object is only a little further, they will lean or twist the rest of their body to be able to reach the object.
Something similar to this could be done in Croquet to "loosely couple" pointing and looking. For example, establishing a rectangular area between 1/2 to 7/8 of the area of the Croquet camera view, centered in that view, could allow for "pointing only" as long as the mouse cursor is within that rectangle. If the mouse moves towards the edge of the camera view, the avatar could turn to look in that direction thereby extending the range of what can be pointed at. This type of edge-scrolling is used in many games and other GUIs, and could make avatar navigation much easier in Croquet.
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