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From: ali@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: A/UX window systems, Mac toolbox, etc
Message-ID: <2098@polya.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 2 Mar 88 00:39:38 GMT
References: <4129@hoptoad.uucp> <283@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu> <1710@ssc-vax.UUCP> <3996@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com>
Reply-To: ali@polya.UUCP (Ali Ozer)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 23

In article <3996@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> Bruce G. Barnett writes:
>My naive impression of the Mac Windows was that is was a useful window
>system given a single process and a small screen. But I don't
>understand how Apple can provide the same interface in a multi
>application environment. How would pull-down menus work with multiple
>applications? They can't all grab the top of the screen.

They provide the same sort of interface the Amiga's provided since the
beginning --- The menu bar shows the menu options of the application which
is active. You just click on another window, and the menu options belonging
to the application that owns that window appear in the menu bar.

An Amiga feature which I'm sure Mac owners would love to see on their
machine is the ability for tasks to open up their own screens.
Thus a task requiring 2 colors can open up a single-bit plane
screen while a task requiring 4096 colors can open up another --- They both
exist in their own screens, which the user can drag up and down and depth
arrange. (Of course, each screen can have its own set of windows, and its
own set of menus --- after all, each screen has its own menu bar!)
This reduces the clutter of having too many windows on the desktop.
What happens on the Mac II when a task wants 8 bit 
planes --- Does the whole desktop change into 8-bit plane mode?  

Ali Ozer, ali@polya.stanford.edu