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From: taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Message-ID: <1991Jun19.154113.28723@news.iastate.edu>
Date: 19 Jun 91 15:41:13 GMT
References: <1991Jun15.180607.10502@sugar.hackercorp.com> <1991Jun16.214309.18102@news.iastate.edu> <1991Jun17.123525.1485@sugar.hackercorp.com>,<1991Jun18.165401.26383@ifi.unizh.ch>
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Reply-To: taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA.
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   Drag-and-drop does sound interesting, but it ocurred to me that, in 
order for drag-and-drop to work well on an Amiga, one additional feature
will have to be added.

   The problem is that on the Amiga, icons can be (and very often are)
quite large.  Icons larger than about 30x30 (a typical, usable size on
a 640x200 Workbench) are common, and it is not unusual to find icons as
large as half of the screen.  Icons this large can play havoc with a
feature like drag-and-drop, because when the user drags an unusually large 
icon over a cluster of applications, the user will not be able to tell
which application will be launched when the icon is released.

   To solve this problem, one additional selection needs to be added to
the "Show By" options in the Workbench 2.0 menus.  The new option could
be called "Show By Default Icon" (or something similar), and work work
as follows:  if no icons are selected, then all of the icons in the 
currently active window will be shown by the default system icon images 
instead of the actual images in the .info file.  If an icon is selcted,
then only the image for that particular file is replaced with the default
image.  If an icon is already the default image (for a program without
an icon, for instance) then nothing happens for that icon.  Further, if
the icon for a program or project is swapped with the default icon and
that icon is selected, the tools and tooltypes in the actual .info file
should be used exactly as if the original icon was selected (in other
words, the "Show By Default Icon" option should trade the image only, 
and notthing else).

   This would effectively solve the problem of large icons with the 
drag-and-drop feature, because if a program does have a large icon, the
user could have the normal-sized default icon image shown instead, and
drag that image over to the application.

   I know I did not explain this very well, but I am in a hurry at the
moment.  Anyway, the problem of large icons is serious enough to make
drag-and-drop useless in many, many circumstances, and this added 
'Show By ...' feature is one way to solve this.
 
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 / Marc Barrett  -MB- | BITNET:   XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET        /   
/  ISU COM S Student  | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU   /      
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\        The great thing about standards is that          /
 \       there are so many of them to choose from.       /
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