bryce@COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (Bryce Nesbitt) (06/28/87)
In article <1443> kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) >In article <4074> spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer) writes: >> >> [...] In fact for many programs it should be >> possible to tell them to go away (close all windows and screens) and >> sit in memory waiting for a certain key press before opening up again. >> Jim's idea is for Multitasking Desk Accessories. These programs would >> even eventually be started at boot time with the command >> BindCommodities, which would look in the Commodities directory and >> execute all the commands there. Sounds great!! Fine points I'd like to see would be a Commodities drawer that you just dump an icon into to be added. The Commodities broker would look at the datestamp of the directory and decide if it needed to update it's ".CustomerList" file. By default a new client would have it's name recorded and a flag set to load the code each time you boot. With an editor you could change this to only make the name available, no pre-loading done. A menu (or something) would have a list of all clients with at least two possible checkmarks: Active and Loaded. Active would mean a client is busy doing it's thing. This may be as visible as DropShadow or as subtle as PopCli. Active would not mean that there is a window up for that program. In DropShadow's case that mangy window would be CLOSED unless you wanted to play with the settings. The loaded checkmark would indicate that the code is resident. "Broker friendly" programs would have bits to twiddle if they are "reentrant", "reusable" or "neither" and other parameters like an absolute _hard_for_the_user_to_mess_with_ stack size. If "loaded" is not checked, but active is, the user-interaction mechanism either unloaded itself or was bumped because of low memory. Simply select it to bring it back. Now going byond the probable, make that a menu in all screens and add ghosting to those who's advertised window characteristics are incompatible with the screen at hand. Now *THIS* would be *NICE*. "Broker friendly" programs would have bits to twiddle for what they can handle in the way of screens. Sadly, so would screens. > For the particular case of a bunch of workbench programs lurking in the > background with no visible screen representation, I'd rather have one > RSLclock sized window for the commodities broker, with one dynamic menu of > all the programs available for call, by name, than to have to remember all > the (possibly mutable) hot-key combos to call them up. Guess the brain > cells are just getting a bit soggy with age, but ... > > Other's comments? Kent. Not soggy at all. The ability to instantly verify what is active and what is not has great value. Especially on the Amiga where there are so many individual toys to play with. |\ /| . Ack! (NAK, EOT, SOH) {o O} . ( " ) bryce@cogsci.berkeley.EDU -or- ucbvax!cogsci!bryce U Single tasking? Just stare at them for a moment, then start to laugh.