Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nuchat!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: When you wish upon a star...
Message-ID: <1336@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jan 88 17:12:08 GMT
References: <1307@sugar.UUCP> <4325@garfield.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 74

In article <4325@garfield.UUCP>, john13@garfield.UUCP (John Russell) writes:
> In article <1307@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
> >	2) Make workbench more useful: let people drag windows partly off the
> >	   screen. I can't think of any good reason to prevent this: almost
> This one I have to disagree with. Consider:
> - you can do it with morerows (perhaps you mean add an option for a morerowed
> screen in Preferences? That one I could like.)

Nope, you can't. A 24 line by 80 column window is too large for you to pull
aside and expose the workbench disk icons, even with the most more-rowed screen
I can stand. Interlace is out unless you like eyestrain.

> - this would eat some chip memory, which is already in short supply for some
> applications

It would take up no more memory than having those same windows partly hidden 
behind other windows. Zero if no windows have been dragged off-screen or
only simple-refresh windows have.

> - if it was done with morerows, a lot of windows would open to the full size
> of the window (partially off the screen)

The full size of the workbench (and other) screen would not change. What
would change would be the behaviour of ResizeWindow and MoveWindow (and
whatever routines Intuition calls when you drag a window) so that
windows would be clipped when you got to the edge of the screen instead
of crashing the system. I see where you're confused, now. I'm not
advocating increasing the size of the workbench screen. I'm advocating
changing the way windows behave when they overlap the edge of the
bitmap. As an experiment open three console windows. Arrange them like
so:

			 +--------+
			 |CON  ||||
			 +--------+
       +----+		 |        |
       |    |		 |        |
       +----+		 |        |
			 |        |
			 |        |
			 |        |
			 |        |
  +-------------------------------+
  |CON                         ||||
  +-------------------------------+
  |                               |
  +-------------------------------+

Now click the little one to the back. Drag it so that it's partially
behind the other two. Imagine that the other two ar the edge of the
screen. Where's that window's bitmap now? Partially in a save space.
Same thing would happen in my scenario. Since the mouse would still be
constrained to the existing workbench area you couldn't size the sucker
offsecreen and you couldn't drag it entirely offscreen. You'd have to
have at least one pixel onscreen just from the mechanics of the thing.

> - windows that move around by themselves (eg the MCLI that WordPerfect does)
> or change their own size (eg DME windows when iconifying) or even just small
> windows could easily get lost off the edges of the screen.

Nope, because NormalDisplayRows and NormalDisplayColumns would stay the
same, so MCLI and DME wouldn't know about the extra space.

> What sort of size limitations are imposed upon Mac windows?

I don't know. They're all simple-refresh, by the way, so they don't take
up any space while offscreen.

Since windows can't be dragged anywhere you can't move the pointer,
there's no problem. If you could move the pointer there to drag 'em, you
can move the pointer there to get 'em back.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.