dent@unocss.UUCP (Dave Caplinger) (11/10/88)
It seems like everyone has their own complaints about the Mac inter-
face, so I thought I'd post mine here. :-)
Let me show my bias against the new Finder (for that's really what
determines the "interface") right at the outset: I don't particularly
care for it. I don't like the MultiFinder interface either, to be
truthfull. MultiFinder added yet another object in the menu bar, and on
most Macs, not a very visible one either. (Let me get really radical
here and say that I've never really liked "small icon" view for anything
other than "generic" file, application, and folder icons.) Clicking on
the Mini-Icon in the upper right corner "rotated" the active application
in a non-intuitive manner, and the button showed no indication that you
had actually clicked on it. (ALWAYS use auto-hilite! :-) The new version
of Finder adds a third mini-icon to the menubar for the keyboard macro
facility. Frankly, on a Plus or SE, there's just TOO MUCH information up
there.
The current Finder-MultiFinder combination suffers from the same
problem: Trying to show too much information in the same area. Each
time you switch contexts from one application to another in MultiFinder,
the menubar switches to the normal "UniFinder" menubar of the application,
and the old menubar is lost.
Part One: The Window
Except for the addition of the "zoom" box, the window itself hasn't
really changed that much. A few additions would be nice though...
Assuming a MultiFinder-type interface (more than one program on-screen
at a time), I propose these:
o Resize the window from any of the four corners.
(No, I'm not trying to copy Open Look, I just think it's
needed.)
o A "shrink" button to shrink the window to it's smallest
size would be helpfull, especially for Plus and SE machines.
o A "previous size" button that would return the window to it's
previous size. (Either from "zoom" or "shrink" or normal
re-sizing.)
o The title bar of a window should indicate the name of the
window as well as the application that "owns" the window.
(It is not always "intuitively obvious" that a window belongs
to any one application...) This may mean replacing Chicago
font, but I certainly wouldn't mind!
o Add the menubar specific to each application in the window
for that application. Similar to the "pallate" menu in Claris'
MacDraw II, the "mini-menubar" should be scrollable in both
directions. (With the mouse button held down, "browse" the
menus and "slide" into the "Scroll-Left" indicator... see
the diagram. :-)
Perhaps some justification is needed here. In "my" Finder (inherently Multi-
tasking), the "Desktop" is reserved for "file" functions, or those related
to file-management. (Copy files, format disks, view directories, etc.) The
"main" menubar (the one at the top of the screen, used by Finder) would not be
used for anything else. Each individual window would have it's own version of
the menubar, scrollable where necessary to get at all the options. Of course,
this assumes the new ROMS with pop-up menu routines. In this way, the menu
options appropriate for an application would be physically bound to that
application's window, not seperate as in the current MultiFinder. For
those applications that have their own "pallette" windoids, perhaps a mapping
of the entire screen into the window is in order?
Common functions such as Cut, Paste, Copy, and Clear (that are in every
application that supports desk accessories) I haven't finalized yet. It's
likely that desk accessories should only be accessable from the "Finder"
menubar, instead of from all of them... Finder could fake out older
applications by telling them that there are no desk accessories. I'm not
certain; I'm no Mac Programmer. :-)
Part Two: The Desktop
The "desktop area" should be customizable; A user should be able to specify
that no application should be allowed to draw a window over the trash can and
disk icons, for example. Additionally, the user should be able to tile windows
if he so chooses; I imagine an interface that would let me "snap a window to
the tiling grid" by holding down the command key as I drag the window if I have
"tiling off" in my "Finder Options", or just by dragging the window if I have
it on... Also, I could turn off multi-tasking in a similar fashion (most
likely a hierarchical menu of check-items.) WITHOUT having to reboot the mac.
:-)
Also, I'd like to see a "Desktop" CDEV that would let me iconically
define the tiling grid (by placing lines on a mini-desktop) in a similar
fashion as the "Monitor" CDEV lets you move monitors. Perhaps this CDEV
would also let me define the "window region" that windows may not exceed
(unless I specifically drag them out of it).
Part Three: Your Input?
Appended at the end of this posting is a BINHEXed MacPaint file of "my"
example window interface. I realize it's probably a sin to post something
like this to a discussion group, but it really goes with this post (get
me a multi-media NEWS, and we won't have this problem! :-) so I did it
anyway. Flame me for it if you like.
So, after reading this file, if you are interested in seeing the examples,
save this post, edit out the text of the post (all above the "cut here"
line), send the resulting file down to your Mac, and un-BINHEX it. From
there, read it into any program that will read MacPaint-format files.
(I used SuperPaint 1.1 to create it...) Enjoy!
Anyway, I am of course open to suggestions, and would like to see some debate
about "an improved interface" for the Mac, but most importantly, I'd like to
see these changes in System Upgrade 7.0 or 8.0. :-) Are you out there, Apple?
*** LAST MINUTE NOTE: ***
I just checked the file size and noticed that the binhex file is close to
32K on it's own, so I am going to post it seperately, immediately following
this posting. Noticing what happened when I posted Termlock to comp.os.vms,
that probably means that some of you saw the example file first, a few days
ago. If that's the case, go back and get it! :-) If you don't have it
around any more, I would be perfectly willing to mail it to you; just drop
me a line....
-/ Dave Caplinger /---------------+-----------------------------------------
Microcomputer Specialist | Internet: unocc07%zeus@crcvms.unl.edu
Campus Computing | uucp: uunet!btni!unocss!dent
University of Nebraska at Omaha | Bitnet: UNOCC07@UNOMA1
Omaha, NE 68182 | (Last Resort: dc3a+@andrew.cmu.edu)mclek@dcatla.UUCP (Larry E. Kollar) (11/17/88)
I'd like to see an Apple-blessed method of sending a window to the back of a pile of windows. I tend to leave windows of current projects open all the time, and I occasionally have a window completely buried. There's an INIT called "Rear Window," but it didn't come with any docs & I don't know how to use it, or even if it sends a window to the bottom. Larry Kollar ...!gatech!dcatla!mclek