Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!hsdndev!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!ari From: ari@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Ari Halberstadt) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Make SFDialogs movableDBoxProc (Was Re: User interface issues) Summary: use modeless dialogs as much as possible, have one event loop Message-ID: <1991Apr5.231457.4032@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Date: 5 Apr 91 23:14:57 GMT References: <1991Apr4.024724.27910@midway.uchicago.edu> <20072@imag.imag.fr> Sender: news@dartvax.dartmouth.edu (The News Manager) Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 28 In article <20072@imag.imag.fr> gourdol@imag.imag.fr (Gourdol Arnaud) writes: >In article <1991Apr4.024724.27910@midway.uchicago.edu> jcav@quads.uchicago.edu (john cavallino) writes: >>I think the Standard File dialog is a relic of the days before Multifinder >>and inter-application communication. Especially in light of the dramatic >>improvements in the System 7 Finder, it seems to me that there should be only >I agree with you, the Standard File dialog shouldn't exist. >However its disparition brings a couple of problems: >The open commands sometimes needs aditional parameters to open its >document (for example are the plain text file with a CR at the If every application expects a standard file dialog, why can't Apple make an optional file dialog which is a movable modal dialog? Any well written application should be able to cope with movable modal dialogs. Lets get rid of those ugly modal dialogs, and try to restrict their use to things like alerts and a few other truly modal situations. Why not have a truly modeless standard file dialog? (I'm not sure about this one, but with the advent of large screens it wouldn't create much clutter, and it could be hidden on suspend events.) What's the easiest way to convert an application to modeless dialogs? Use only one event loop! Don't call WaitNextEvent from 10 places in your code, call it only from the top of the event loop, and make your event loop reentrant so that it can be run from the middle of a long calculation. I'm not sure how this fits into MacApp, but I imagine MacApp does a similar thing. Converting alerts into dialogs also simplifies life (I'm prepared to defend this position, so only flame me about this if you want to have fun :).