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From: ldo@waikato.ac.nz (Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Waikato University)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: An application is a mode (was Re: Another MPW 3.2 Shell wish...)
Message-ID: <1991Jan30.194154.2864@waikato.ac.nz>
Date: 30 Jan 91 06:41:54 GMT
References: <1991Jan29.165442.2851@waikato.ac.nz> <11189@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Lines: 49

In article <11189@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>, michaelh@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu
(Michael A. Hoffhines) makes some interesting observations on my
suggestions about the handling of panes in MPW 3.2:

"These two panes may be on separate monitors, one may be obscured by the
other..."

Minor point: panes are tiled within a window, they don't overlap.
I don't think this invalidates your argument, though.

"This does raise a point in the more general context of IAC. If you were
editing a document in two different applications, would you expect the
selection and edits to occur in both of the panes as you describe for multi-
ple panes in MPW?"

"Another thought. I can see all sorts of interesting expectations arising
when, for example, you have published a graphic from your
spreadsheet program and have subscribed the graphic in a word-proc doc. As
you edit the graphic you expect to see the changes in the wordprocessor's
copy naturally enough. Equally understandable, but in error (at least in
the short term), is that you will also try to edit the graphic in the WP."

I think the point can be made even more general than this: an application
is itself a mode. Why should I have to remember that I need a word processor
to edit the text, but a drawing package to edit the graphic? Why can't I
just click in the relevant part of the composite document, and instantly
have the right tools available to manipulate it?

Think of it this way: "New Document" becomes a function provided
by the Finder, rather than by applications: within the document, you have
the generic cut/copy/paste/publish/subscribe edit functions on overall sections
of the document. You also have a "New Section" function, which brings up
a list of the available applications you have installed. This allows you
to create a document consisting of, say, text sections interspersed with
graphic sections. Applications only need to implement the edit functions
within a section: copy/paste and linking of entire sections is handled
transparently.

Even this scenario might be a little too modal. You might want a special
symbol which is a graphic object, sitting in a line of text as though
it were just another character, keeping its place relative to its
neighbours as the text reflows. At some point, you might want to edit
the graphic object itself--in the terminology of the previous paragraph,
you have sections within other sections!

Lawrence D'Oliveiro                       fone: +64-71-562-889
Computer Services Dept                     fax: +64-71-384-066
University of Waikato            electric mail: ldo@waikato.ac.nz
Hamilton, New Zealand    37^ 47' 26" S, 175^ 19' 7" E, GMT+13:00