Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!clyde.concordia.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ulysses!allegra!fox From: fox@allegra.att.com (David Fox) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NOT (click to type) in NeXTStep? Message-ID: Date: 5 Nov 90 13:55:17 GMT References: <1990Oct28.165341.6949@cs.cmu.edu> <8516@darkstar.ucsc.edu> Sender: netnews@ulysses.att.com Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 24 In-reply-to: isbell@ucscf.UCSC.EDU's message of 4 Nov 90 18:53:06 GMT In article <8516@darkstar.ucsc.edu> isbell@ucscf.UCSC.EDU (Art Isbell) writes: As I look at my "desktop" now, moving from Stuart to Workspace would require passing over Writenow and Digital Librarian windows. Should these windows receive "activate" messages just because they happened to be in the path between Stuart and my intended destination, Workspace? I doubt anyone would think so. I guess this could be circumvented by requiring the mouse cursor to reside in a window for x seconds before activation starts, but I could see problems with this approach, also. How does Sun manage? I occasionally assume that because the cursor is in a window that the window is the active window, and it is annoying to type and have something unexpected happen in the actual active window, but I'm adjusting to the NeXT approach. In a multi-tasking operating system there is no need to activate and de-activate applications, only a need to be able to see which application is currently receiving input. The requirement of click- to-type is a vestige of non-multi-tasking operating systems like MS-DOS and MacOS. Even the Amiga window system can be configured so there is no need to click on applications to direct the input stream to them. This is a very disturbing revelation for someone like me who has been thinking of buying a NeXT machine. David Fox fox@allegra.att.com