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From: steele@unc.cs.unc.edu (Oliver Steele)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Active windows (was Re: 2 button mouse)
Message-ID: <1643@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 10 Mar 88 18:08:03 GMT
References: <4037@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> <4129@hoptoad.uucp> <283@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu> <1710@ssc-vax.UUCP> <241@eos.UUCP> <1735@ssc-vax.UUCP> <5674@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <7481@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <7602@apple.Apple.Com>
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Reply-To: steele@unc.UUCP (Oliver Steele)
Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 41
Keywords: window human computer interface

Bruce G. Barnett (barnett@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com) writes:
>I have briefly used systems where the active window was always on top of the
>stack. Doesn't this get in the way at times?

Not as much (under the Mac OS) as it would on a Unix system.  The Mac user
interface is primarily mouse driver -- use a mouse to move or delete
files, choose commands, change printer destinations, etc.  There isn't
much use in having keystrokes go to a partially hidden window, because
keystrokes aren't used for anything (much) except straight text entry.  On
UNIX systems -- even all the UNIX systems I've used that put windows on
top of UNIX -- you interact on a semantic level by means of the keyboard,
and you need several shell windows to interact with different parts of the
underlying system (shells in different current working directories,
commands that take so long to finish that you want to do talk to another
process while they're going on).  When semantic information is carried by
mouse activity, redirecting keystrokes doesn't buy you as much.

I keep X and Suntools set up in key->window-under-mouse mode, not
Mac emulation mode (swin -c or f.focus), but the only times I wish
my Mac could act that way are when I'm running terminal emulators
with multiple windows onto a UNIX system (uw; NCSA Telnet), or
when I'm running a command line interface with multiple windows
(MPW).

Of course, this just changes the question into "Wouldn't it be nicer
to be able to click in a window to perform some action without
bringing it to the front [and wouldn't THIS be easier if the Mac
weren't stuck with just one button :-]," and the answer is that
all this really depends on window update time.  If your windows have
cached bitmaps or are tied to applications that can redraw them
virtuinstantaneously, having the window come to the front isn't
as inconvenient as it is if you're running, say, Smalltalk on a
2Meg Sun-2.  It's not necessarily even an extra click, as you
can use the same click both for window activation and operation
(e.g.: the Macintosh Finder).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oliver Steele					   ...!uunet!mcnc!unc!steele
							   steele@cs.unc.edu
"A sea urchin is the best way to comb the inside
of a hairy tube."		-- Peter Wolfenden