Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!yale!mintaka!spdcc!tauxersvilli!alphalpha!nazgul
From: nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: OSF statements about OPEN LOOK
Message-ID: <1990Sep14.172922.27088@alphalpha.com>
Date: 14 Sep 90 17:29:22 GMT
References: <1990Sep13.204215.5215@Solbourne.COM>
Organization: asi
Lines: 35

In article <1990Sep13.204215.5215@Solbourne.COM> garya@garya.Solbourne.COM (Gary Aitken) writes:
>> Not having pushpins means that you either let the user get annoyed
>> or you create an alternative mechanism for keeping dialogs up.
>> In Motif this is the difference between the "Ok" button (which takes
>> it down) and the "Apply" button, which keeps it up.  You have both
>> and the user decides which to select.
>Now consider that there are numerous situations where you have dialog boxes
>with more than two buttons.  You need to add 2*(number of buttons-1),
>assuming one is a "Cancel", to get the functionality of a single pushpin.

This really has nothing to do with the previous argument - I was simply
saying why my application needs to know whether I have pushpins or not.

Now you are asking whether having pushpins is better than Okay/Apply/Cancel.
I don't buy the 2* number.  In fact, I can just make all of the buttons
do their operations and have no Okay button, then Cancel will take it down
and I have all the functionality of a Pushpin.  Personally I think pushpins
are cute, I'd prefer tearoffs for my menus though, but that's probably hard
to do under X.  But given the lack of a better suggestion I'd love to see
pushpins added to Motif.  We even considered it when we were putting together
the Motif definition, but we didn't think it would go over real well.
I can see it now...  "Hi!  We don't really want most of Open Look, but
we really liked your pushpins, how about if we just take those?  And if you
really want us to take more, how much is that cute little magnifying glass in
the Help window?"  :-)

							-kee
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I'm not sure which upsets me more; that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.