Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!ukc!sys.uea!jrk
From: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: System 7.0 speculations - Feature wishlist
Message-ID: <672@sys.uea.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Aug 89 13:31:54 GMT
References: <587GDAU100@BGUVM> <19201@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU> <656@sys.uea.ac.uk> <459@lloyd.camex.uucp>
Reply-To: jrk@uea-sys.UUCP (Richard Kennaway)
Organization: University of East Anglia, Norwich
Lines: 30

In article <459@lloyd.camex.uucp> kent@lloyd.UUCP (Kent Borg) writes:
>In article <656@sys.uea.ac.uk> jrk@uea-sys.UUCP (Richard Kennaway) writes:
>>When an application (the Finder or any other) is in the foreground, all
>>its graphic objects should be in the foreground.  Obvious, yes?
>
>How would you tell the difference between an icon in a window, and a
>desktop icon which is floating above a window?  

I'd regard that as a problem to be solved, rather than a refutation of
the idea.  (And one which I'll leave to the interface design experts,
not being one myself.)

>If you can't keep your desktop clean enough to be seen, then don't put
>file icons there.  I can't, so I don't.

I use a Mac+.  Small screen.  As soon as you run an application, you cant
see the desktop.  In the Finder itself, I can arrange the Finder windows
to not obscure the (er...switch to Finder, Set Aside Others...) twenty-one
icons on my desktop.  Most other applications, you need a full-screen
window.

However, Set Aside Others, which I just read about in another message here
(manuals? but this is a Mac! :-) ) does make it easier.  Perhaps easy
enough to be a sufficient solution of the problem.

>Kent Borg

--
Richard Kennaway          SYS, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K.
uucp:  ...mcvax!ukc!uea-sys!jrk		Janet:  kennaway@uk.ac.uea.sys