Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!bloom-beacon!LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU!mouse
From: mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  help (with a popup prompt design)
Message-ID: <8908240132.AA07940@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 24 Aug 89 01:32:29 GMT
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 29

> From: phil@goldhill.com

> There are cases where the user should not be allowed to do anything
> except respond to the popup.

Perhaps, but I don't think this is it.  The only case where I can see
any excuse for hijacking all user input is when the entire window
system, not just one application, is threatening to be unusable.  For
example, a window manager popping up an alert "ill-behaved application
on the rampage, do you want to XKillClient or let it run?".

> I have popup[']s that block all input in the case when a malloc has
> failed - the popup is to notify the user that such a condition has
> arisen and inform them that cleanup is about to occur and that a
> "safe" state in the application is to be returned to.

So why force the user to respond?  There's nothing they can do about
it; why not simply make *your application* freeze until the popup is
responded to?  I certainly know I might well want to switch to another
window and look at a doc file, or run gcore...or perhaps even trash the
whole program.  I would be most annoyed if I had to go find a terminal
and log in again to get a chance to look at something - probably enough
so that I'd either trash the program entirely or fix it before
proceeding further.

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu