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From: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Interface Builder observations
Message-ID: <427@heaven.woodside.ca.us>
Date: 19 Feb 91 19:05:45 GMT
References: <423@heaven.woodside.ca.us>
Reply-To: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid)
Organization: RightBrain Software, Woodside, CA
Lines: 56

In article <423@heaven.woodside.ca.us> I wrote:

>Interface Builder is an impressive piece of software, there is
>no doubt.  But tonight I was struck by a number of peculiarities
>that it has.  For example:
> 
> [ examples deleted ]

I got more mail on this subject than anything I've posted to the
net in a long time :-)  Thanks to all of you for your helpful
messages.  I wanted to make a couple of followup comments.

First, it was pointed out by many of you that lots of program alter
their icons.  I guess I thought of interface builder as being
different only because it's a big "switch" that you're supposed to
click on to get the program back into its normal state.  Other apps
(like Mail, process monitors, etc) merely show extra information
in the icon, rather than making the icon itself into a control button.

Also, I guess I didn't make this very clear by the way I said "how on
earth do they do that?", but I wasn't actually interested in HOW so
much as in pointing out that the various things were a bit non-standard
for a program that was supposed to build standard interfaces.  Most
of the responses I got told me how it was done, and since many of
them were also posted, I don't need to recap them, I don't think.

I do maintain, however, that using very skinny windows to draw lines
across the screen is a subversion of the user interface principles,
even though it is quasi-supported, and, in the words of Ali Ozer,
"perfectly legal."  It is a very limited mechanism, since the windows
have to be rectangular, and it is very easy to abuse, and will be
abused if it is promoted as a reasonable practice.  I would rather see
it acknowledged that there are times when you simply must draw outside
your own windows, and to have that supported somehow by the AppKit.
Obviously interface builder needed it.  And the Workspace Manager uses
a technique like that when you drag an icon from one window to another
(it becomes a small window in the space between windows).  And now
Diagram! uses that same technique when dragging items from their palette
to the main window (theirs even manages to get some transparency
behind the objects, I assume by compositing the contents of the screen
behind the objects into the little window each time it is moved).

A good interface paradigm must be extended quickly enough to keep up
with the requirements of the software development community to keep
them (us) from inventing hacks to solve sticky problems.  This is
already happening, which I applaud (notice the new "setFloatingPanel"
method in the Panel class).  I merely wanted to point out a few more
instances where the "de facto" interfaces are stretching the
boundaries of the officially sanctioned interface guidelines, and it's
best to notice those things and comprehend them before they
proliferate too far.

-- 
 Glenn Reid				RightBrain Software
 glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us		NeXT/PostScript developers
 ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn		415-851-1785 (fax 851-1470)