enk@corona (Edan Kabatchnik) (08/10/89)
In some article about Multifinder, Larry Kollar writes: > - The Mac dialog boxes lock out *all* user input to tasks or windows > other than the dialog box itself. What if I want to pull up the > on-line documentation to help me decide what to set in the dialog? > This is a BIG malfeature of Multifinder. Programmers should only use modal dialog boxes in situations where a response from the user is absolutely necessary for a program to continue. In most cases, this should be questions like "Should I save this document or should I throw away your Pulitzer Prize changes to the 500 page document you are writing?" Modeless dialogs should be used for casual user input, so that on-line documentation can be viewed. Moreover, Modal dialogs do not block out all tasks. For example, TOPS can access a local disk for someone else on a localtalk network while a modal dialog is up. > - While printing a background job, I often have a hard time keeping > control of the mouse pointer -- it's like using the mouse as a > slingshot. Very annoying. I notice this problem when using a 68000 based machine. This is usually not a problem when using a 68020 or 68030 based machine, although someone accessing my local disk from a remote machine via TOPS does cause this problem. (Maybe we need a coprocessor for I/O?) > - You need gobs of memory to do anything useful with MultiFinder. > This is as much the fault of what I call "software bloat" as > MultiFinder's actual memory requirements (although 500K+ is quite > a bit), and this is getting just as bad on Amigas, so this isn't > that much of a difference. Multifinder (and any multitasker for that matter) derives its memory requirements from the applications that are running. Today's cutting edge applications are HUGE. Imagine if applications were still small: 3 128K applications could run comfortably on a 1M machine under Multifinder. 11 of them could run on a 2M Machine! Moreover, usual Virtual on a 68020/68030 based machine circumvents the vast memory requirements for multiple applications. +------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+ |There is a club if you would like to go. | Edan Kabatchnik | |You could meet someone who really loves you. | MIT | |So you go, and you stand on your own. - The Smiths |enk@wheaties.ai.mit.edu| |And you leave on your own. | Schlumberger Tech | |And you go home, and you cry, and you want to die. | enk@slcs.slb.com | +------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+