Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
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From: rjc@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Subject: Re: Some WB2.0 Peeves
Message-ID: <1991Jun24.000524.378@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
Organization: The Internet
References: <1991Jun23.210647.20152@news.iastate.edu>
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 91 00:05:24 GMT
Lines: 50

In article <1991Jun23.210647.20152@news.iastate.edu> taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:
>
>   I do most of my computer-related work at school on DECstation 3100.  One
>of the things I have noticed is that on this system, when the mouse is moved
>to the top of a window and a menu is pulled down (I use DECterm, which has
>menus), any motion going on in the current window does not stop.  (If a
>bunch of text is scrolling, it keeps on scrolling, for instance).  Also,
>if a window is moved, the program controlling that window stops, but any
>animation in other windows keeps on moving.
>
>   My question is: why can't this be so on an Amiga?  With WB2.0 (or 1.3
>or whatever), when you pull down a menu or drag a menu or icon or whatever,
>all animation in motion on the current screen stops.  I guess I don't quite
>understand why this has to be on a computer with such awesome animation as
>an Amiga.  

  It has nothing to do with processor power, it has to do with design.
Intuition is single-thread (or dual depending on how you look at it)
Some things run on the input.device's task, other's run on the
application's task. When intuition has a menu up, it has to lock the
current screen otherwise the application could render to the screen
and screw up the menu's being displayed. The "problem" could probably
be solved by making a menu-handling task and making windows have
their own layers. This is as big a problem as you make it. Dragging
windows is only done for a fraction of a second, and no one holds down
a menu for a half hour. Also, this has no effect on other screens, only
the current screen is affected. More often than not, I am irrated by
programs that update the screen while a requester up, so menu's would
probably be worse. Imagine a program outputting lots of text while you
choosing a menu option, you'd have to let go of the menu so you can read the
stuff before it scrolls off the window. Also, I use the right mouse
button to pause scrolling! This is the #1 reason not to change it.

[I could be wrong in my assumptions since I'm only making an educated
guess, so perhaps Peter Cherna can elaborate.]

>  -------------------------------------------------------------
> / Marc Barrett  -MB- | BITNET:   XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET        /   
>/  ISU COM S Student  | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU   /      
>------------------------------------------------------------    
>\        The great thing about standards is that          /
> \       there are so many of them to choose from.       /
>  -------------------------------------------------------


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