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From: mike@ames.UUCP (Mike Smithwick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Better Windows? (LONG)
Message-ID: <1526@ames.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-May-87 11:30:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1526
Posted: Wed May 13 11:30:49 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 16-May-87 03:07:00 EDT
References: <565@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1987May12.233757.24441@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: mike@ames.UUCP (Mike Smithwick)
Distribution: world
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 34
Keywords: Goodbye Hill Street. . .
Xref: mnetor comp.sys.amiga:4777 comp.sys.mac:3103 comp.sys.atari.st:3419

In article <1987May12.233757.24441@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> pete@gpu.utcs.UUCP (Peter Santangeli) writes:
>
> On the subject of Window recursion, the one part of most windowing systems
>I find counter -intuitive is the difference between the desktop and a window.
> Wouldn't it make more sence to allow WINDOWS to have there own menu systems?

In a sense, the windows do have their own menus, the active windows are given
their own menu strip at the top of the screen (if the programmer attached one
to it, that is). 

>These could be model (only the active windows menus available) or semi-model
>(active and desktop available). This kind of scheme would make multitasking
>much more intuitive.

I much rather prefer the Sun approach, which uses popup menus, as opposed to
the pulldowns. With the Sun, each window, no matter what, has it's own menu.
It can have a system default menu attached to the border,(used for resizing,
pushing/popping, etc.), and as many user defined menus for the application 
within the borders. There is also a user-definable "root-menu" to support their
desktop. This menu is attached to the background screen, and is constructed from
a dot file in the user account. That is, the user specfies in a simple text
file, the programs they want callable from the root-menu. 

The menus also support seemingly infinite levels of nesting, whereas 
Intuition has a maximum of two levels (one of it's major flaws).

Just a few random thoughts from the cortex of . . .


-- 
				   *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick ***

"ever felt like life was a game, and 
 someone gave you the wrong instruction book?"