::scr Drooling GUI

[Paul Mison]

On 07/03/2002 at 12:48 +0000, Simon Batistoni wrote:

>I wonder if working like this (Kate now uses X, but keeps windows
>fullscreen
>and cycles the ones she needs to the top) would be more or less confusing
>for a lot of people. Forcing required apps to the top would arguably
>lead to
>a cleaner interface - none of those messy, overlapping windows. It would
>effectively render drag-and-drop impossible, but in my experience, most
>normal users don't understand drag-and-drop anyway.

A lot of people do work like this, and in fact the software seems to
encourage it. Start up Office on a PC, and Word will probably maximise
to fill the window, and if it doesn't, you'll probably need to to see
stuff, and that goes double for Excel. I find a lot of the time when
I'm borrowing Wistow's laptop that IE windows are set to open
maximised. iTunes is only usable for browsing when it more or less
fills the screen, and iPhoto demands lots of space too. I can only name
a few apps that are really happy as small multiple windows, come to
think of it, and most of those are Mac-based (but then, so am I).

I did get really annoyed with this (in fact, I still am, a bit) but I
agree that for most people alt-tabbing (or whatever the key stroke is)
works fine, and in fact is probably less confusing. (I've heard people
say they want to disable the fact that windows can overlap, which
strikes me as odd; that's the whole point, surely? On the other hand,
you never have to go hunting in a stack.)

There's probably a lurking argument about MDI and SDI concealed in here
somewhere, and about tabbed windows (like Galeon/ recent Mozillas (I
think)).

This is a terribly half-cooked post. Sorry.

--
:: paul
:: macintosh!