davet@oakhill.UUCP (David Trissel) (04/09/89)
One of the side effects of more powerful applications is the likelyhood that more windows be required for their operation. Multiple window management problems with the Mac interface are becoming more apparent to developers and users alike. Indeed the origin of the ongoing lengthy discussion concerning MF awareness is directly related to this. The advent of MultiFinder has only accentuated the window managing problem. I consider my own application a prime example. Without going into details it allows up to 7 user-sizable windows to be open at once. (These are windows into a host Unix system and the user usually wants most of them to be large in size.) The problem is that this number of windows is simply unwieldy. Since the same window may be running a different command from one minute to the next the user would like to be able to quickly switch between windows, set aside a window, bring back a window and keep track of all these windows with the same ease afforded some of the other capabilities of the Mac interface. The obvious solution seemed to be to create a menu which lists all active windows and the command they are running. In fact, each window has a number in it's title (from 1 to 7) so that with a simple menu command key the user can activate any window. Unfortunately the users are not happy with this because they must constantly use the mouse to activate the menu so they can see what's available and where (what number) it is. The users need to have a graphical representation of each window available within easy reach. Other windowing systems do have such a built-in capability. I guess I'd call it window iconing. (I first noticed this on NeXT and I've since found out that SunTools and some X-window managers provide this as well.) This allows the user to shrink the window to an ICON and place the ICON wherever she wishes on the desktop. (One neat X-window system actually keeps the ICON updated to reflect the real-time appearance of the window-pretty neat!) In a way, the Mac under multifinder acts somewhat like this for documents on the desktop. Even if the application is already running you can click on the document and MF will try to get the application to open it. Of course applications have practically no control over these desktop ICONs. And such ICONs are limited to Mac files. Then along comes Larry's comments which fit right in: In article <28590@apple.Apple.COM> lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) writes: > >>but I want it OUT OF THE WAY when I'm not typing at it. Lonnie did the >>right thing, and the guidelines be damned: they're guidelines, not dogma. > >Shrinking the window while in the background sounds like a good idea to me, > ... You can also do this without worrying about whether MultiFinder is > running; all you care about is whether you get a suspend event or not. Here again we have the problem of representing windows in some more useful and compact form. [I'm leaving a lot of details out about trying to solve this problem. For example I added a "hide Window" menu feature but that didn't help too much. It just cut down on screen clutter.] I'm not proposing that ICONing windows is the way to go. (And I have the uncomfortable suspicion that even if it was Apple would be loath to copy what someone else has already done.) But there's got to be a more general solution to this problem and it should be initiated/supported by Apple. Instead of proposing ICONing methodologies (for example, should the ICON be present even when the window is open?) I'd instead like to hear opinions from those who have used ICONing systems as described or have had to deal with this problem in their own applications. Has anyone seen an application which succesfully deals with this problem? I use my Mac somewhere between 8 and 10 hours most days (seriously) so items of this nature have a real inpact on my life. (A true Macaholic!) Thanks and awaiting a meaty discussion - Dave Trissel Motorola Austin ut-sally!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!davet P.S. How ironic. In trying to find what my usenet path was I had to open a menu to see if I had any hidden windows already open to a Unix shell. Now if I only had a little ICON down in the corner representing that window ... :-)
pepke@loligo.cc.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) (04/13/89)
In article <1962@oakhill.UUCP> davet@oakhill.UUCP (David Trissel) writes: >Other windowing systems do have such a built-in capability. I guess I'd call >it window iconing. (I first noticed this on NeXT and I've since found out >that SunTools and some X-window managers provide this as well.) This allows >the user to shrink the window to an ICON and place the ICON wherever she >wishes on the desktop. (One neat X-window system actually keeps the ICON >updated to reflect the real-time appearance of the window-pretty neat!) [more stuff about iconing windows] You can do this well and easily using the existing Mac system. You can make windows any size you want. By writing a window definition, which is very easy, you can make windows look any way you want. You can put anything you want into a window and make it act any way you want. The only thing that might prevent you from making a window that looks just like a little NeXT icon box is NeXT's legal department. :-) The major difference between a window and an icon in this case would be the name. The only real difference would be that an icon would reside in a special MultiFinder-hostile desktop layer, as the Finder icons do now, while a window would be up there with the window manager where you could more easily deal with it. Clearly there are a lot of user interface decisions to be made, but such a mechanism could certainly be made far more consistent with the UIG's than the grow box mechanism, for example. In any event, it is not Apple's fault that most Mac programs don't do this, as the tools have been there since 1984. Eric Pepke ARPA: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu Florida State University SPAN: pepke@scri Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.