robertk@lotatg.lotus.com (Robert Krajewski) (04/03/91)
In article <1991Mar27.121607.9672@maths.tcd.ie> gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills) writes:
A modal dialog is exactly
what it says it is. Modal. It stops everything. If you don't want to stop
everything, DON'T USE MODAL DIALOGS.
Well, that's not entirely fair -- would it really make sense for a
standard file dialog to *not* be modal ?
Windows dialog boxes have three levels of modality: none, application,
or system. Most modal boxes are application-modal so that you can
switch to other tasks -- especially useful when searching for a file,
for example. System-modal dialogs are reserved for very serious
situations, like a network failure notification. Anyway, on the Mac, I
find it a real pain that I can't pull down any DAs in a modal dialog.
This lossage is basically due to the fact that Multifinder is
relatively new to the Mac. I hope system 7 offers something like
application modal dialogs.barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) (04/03/91)
In article <ROBERTK.91Apr2125055@lotatg.lotus.com> robertk@lotatg.lotus.com (Robert Krajewski) writes: >Well, that's not entirely fair -- would it really make sense for a >standard file dialog to *not* be modal ? Sure it would. In a "Save As" dialog, when I'm typing in the new name, I might want to use operations in the Edit menu to fix what I've entered. A better example would be all the dialogs one has to go through when printing. Suppose you've filled in all the printing parameters in all the dialog boxes, and then realize that you forgot to change something to bold. You have to cancel, make your change, and then go through it again. Why not bring the document window to the top, make the change, bring the printing options dialog back up and click on "OK"? An example where it *was* done right is the "Find" command in most word processors. I would have expected this to be modal, but it generally isn't. -- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (Steve Baumgarten) (04/04/91)
In article <ROBERTK.91Apr2125055@lotatg.lotus.com> robertk@lotatg.lotus.com (Robert Krajewski) writes:
Well, that's not entirely fair -- would it really make sense for a
standard file dialog to *not* be modal ?
Nisus' catalog window is a good implementation of a non-modal
"standard file" dialog. It has all the functionality of the standard
dialog, but doesn't prevent you from switching to another application,
or using the Edit menu, or even clicking on a different Nisus window.
On a slightly different note, I was very disappointed that the
standard file dialog had changed so little in System 7. Given how
long Super Boomerang and similar standard file extenders have been on
the market (and how popular they are), I would have thought that Apple
would have spent some time improving on it. The standard file dialog
is really a relic of the days when people had small hard disks (or
none at all) and few files and folders. For all the improvements that
the System 7 Finder will bring us, those without something like Super
Boomerang will still be spending much more time than necessary
navigating through their disks.
--
Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you."
baumgart@esquire.dpw.com |
cmcl2!esquire!baumgart | - David Letterman