Subject: Re: FYI: Your dialog isn't Modeless
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sat May 27 2000 - 04:17:08 CDT
On Fri, 26 May 2000, Paul Cubbage wrote:
> I bcc'd Jef Raskin my comments and he replied:
>
> I have some comments on Martin's note (I am not sure who is
> communicating to
> whom here).
>
> "Open 4 windows on your desktop, now which window does your symbol go
> into?" From a UI point of view the answer is "The Window Most Recently
> Focussed".
>
> I disagree. As soon as you have windows, you have modes. If one of the
> windows has the system focus, then it will behave differently than the
> other
> windows if, say, you try to type into it. Any other window will require
> a
> click in it (or some such) before you can type, but that one can be
> typed
> into directly. I think there is a quote in my book about windows being
> modes
> in sheep's clothing.
>
"Modeless" in this context means the application is not frozen while the
dialog is up. There are plenty of cases where I strongly believe you want
the application to be frozen with an open dialog. "Insert Symbol" is one
case. I believe "Word Count" is another, there are many more that we will
get around to.
I don't have time to read a book so just give me a short answer to this
question.
If I want to look at two documents simultaneously to say, cut and
paste from one to the other, how do I do it without Windows?
I'm genuinely intruiged to know.
Martin Sevior
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