Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!sun!quintus!pds
From: pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: 1.4 Wish: Revamped sizing gadget
Summary: how about a modified Xerox approach?
Message-ID: <1275@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 19 Oct 89 23:42:22 GMT
References: <5228@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> <4341@sugar.hackercorp.com> <539@tw-rnd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <4714@amiga.UUCP> <4386@sugar.hackercorp.com>
Reply-To: pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte)
Distribution: na
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 45

In article <4386@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>I suggested moving the sizing gadget to the menu bar.

Great idea.  As you say, it'd save a lot of real estate in sizable
windows.

Several people have suggested various approaches that allow you to drag
any corner of a window to resize it.  I think we can all agree this is
desirable but, various approaches all have flaws.  The twm approach
(after selecting the gadget, the next corner of the window which the
mouse leaves becomes the one which is sized) is too confusing for
novices.  The OPEN LOOK/Motif approach of having sizing gadgets all
around the window is nice, but forces you to choose between wasting a
lot of real estate on wide gadgets or making it difficult to actually
hit narrow ones.

As usual, Xerox had a solution to this problem, as someone else pointed
out.  They had a way to move the pointer between corners of the area
being established for the window without changing the area.  It's kind
of hard to explain, but feels very natural.  On the Amiga, this could be
nicely done by using the sizing gadget as it is (whether at the top or
bottom of the window), but when you press the right mouse button (while
still holding the left button), you can move the mouse without moving
the corner of the window.  When you release the right button, the
pointer "snaps" to the nearest corner of the window, and you can
position that corner where you want it.

A nice addition to this, which Xerox doesn't have, is to actually have 8
drag points on the window, each corner and the center of each side.
When you release the right mouse button, the pointer would snap to the
nearest of these 8 points.  Adjusting a side point would let you adjust
a window's width or height without affecting the other.

Anyway, this sort of approach has the advantage of being backward
compatible:  if you don't hit the right mouse button while sizing, it's
just the same as now.  It also has the advantage of being simple for
novices (they just use the current system), but fast for experts
(individually place each corner of a window in one operation).

Comments?

-- 
-Peter Schachte
pds@quintus.uucp
...!sun!quintus!pds