Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!cernvax!chx400!chx400!bernina!neptune!iiic.ethz.ch!mqvortru From: mqvortru@iiic.ethz.ch (Michael Heide Qvortrup) Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms Subject: Re: give me solid facts.... Message-ID: <27828@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> Date: 3 Apr 91 07:24:33 GMT Article-I.D.: neptune.27828 References: <1991Mar27.061300.7636@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <1991Apr2.002941.5578@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1991Apr2.033520.21271@cs.uoregon.edu> Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch Reply-To: mqvortru@iiic.ethz.ch (Michael Heide Qvortrup) Organization: Departement Informatik, ETH, Zurich Lines: 74 In article <1991Apr2.033520.21271@cs.uoregon.edu> akm@obelix.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) writes: >... >I think that this is confusing for a user and that having as many >... >To solve the problem of running a second copy, the system menu should >have an option allowing a second copy to run. This can be disabled on >those applications that cannot allow a second copy to run. So, if you >want a second copy, find the first, and ask it to run a second copy. > And this is not confusing for the user? I agree, that the message "WinWord is already running" is completely stupid, and should have been avoided, but the solution with YAO (yet another option) is really worse! >I don't agree with Robert here. WinFile is *just* another application. >It is *not* part of the OS. The OS (i.e. windows) should see that >there is another instance of the app running, and should bring it to >the foreground. So if Joe Block, Jane Plank and I write our own little >file managers, if we launch an application the OS will take care of >things. The problem in Windows (as shipped) is that there are three >locations where icons can exist, Progman, Winfile and the desktop, and >these three icons don't know about one another. > So you think, that the OS (which it really isn't, it's just Windows) should force me to do things the way IT want me to do them, you know just like the Mac :-)? I find that it is much better to provide the functionality for several diffe- rent ways, and then let the programmer of the application decide how he wants it solved. >>But what if you really want a second instance? > Exactly my point. >What I find funny is that Word etc could have dealt with this rather >than put up the message box, which serves NO purpose. I would guess >that a user who has just double clicked on Word/WinFile icon wants >either to launch a second copy, or wants the first copy back. By >using the messagbox, the programmers have managed to make sure that >neither desire is met... Right you are; this solution is no solution. >Even launching multiple copies of the same application has its >problems... You can end up with lots of empty notepad windows while >the window you *really* want is lost... Or, you could start editing >file.txt by double clikcing on it in WinFile, then double click on it >again, get two instances of notepad with the same document, one with >some changes, one without, make some new changes in copy two, double >click on the filemanager icon again, make a third set of changes, and >save everything back in LIFO... loose your most current changes... I see the problem here, but I don't think, that your solution is all that fine either. Basically you want the application to have multiple document capability. Fine, I would like that, too. You also want the application to recognise multiple instances of the same document. That I don't really like. It makes sense in some apps, e.g. programming editors, but certainly not in all. I can imagine at least one scenario, where I most certainly don't want my document shared. Say, I'm working on a document (this need not be a text), and I see two ways of doing something. Now, I want to check them out, but I don't want to change the same document first one way and then the other. But, my OS wont let me start my app again, as in separate copy running, and my app SHARES my new copy with the old, which means, that changes are eccoed to the original! IMHO, now the OS has become too restrictive. My solution would something along the following (and the app implements it, not the OS). The app gets the message about starting with a new document, it then notices that it is already running, fine don't start another copy. Then it notices, that the new document is a copy of something already loaded. Now I would like the app to ask me whether I want a shared copy of the document, or if I want a distinct copy. Just my attribution to the ongoing thread. --Mike