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From: sho@tybalt.caltech.edu (Sho Kuwamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: A/UX window systems, Mac tool...( Hum Interface)
Message-ID: <5674@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 7 Mar 88 02:55:42 GMT
References: <4129@hoptoad.uucp> <283@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu> <1710@ssc-vax.UUCP> <241@eos.UUCP> <1735@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu
Reply-To: sho@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Sho Kuwamoto)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 53
Keywords: window human computer interface

In article <1735@ssc-vax.UUCP> benoni@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) writes:

>Finally (if you do have multitasking) It gets worse (as I percieve it) on 
>an abstract level...when two windows are on top (side by side) why should
>you choose one over the other in putting a menu bar up for that one?  Can
>you really design a system which unnecessarily defines user activity in a
>serial manner and *predict* the type of applications you will see in the 
>future.
>You wind up limiting your user interface today and for the future.

Enlighten me.  If you have two windows side by side on a Sun, what
happens when you type something from the keyboard?  Why should you
choose one over the other in sending characters to it for that one?
Can you really design a system which unnecessarily defines user
activity in a serial manner and *predict* the type of applications you
will see in the future.
You wind up limiting your user interface today and for the future. :-)

In either case, it seems that certain events can only be posted to the
active window (whether or not it is topmost) and you are always going
to have this type of problem.  In response to someone who said the
Amiga system was slightly better because it has a seperate button for
the mouse, Get REAL!  The Amigas menu bar switches depending on the
active windows, it's just that you can't see it until you hit the
right button.  

What happens with context-sensitive popup menus when the program has
no windows open?  Say you're running a memory based word processor and
you have two enormous files to edit.  You edit the first one, close
it, and edit the second one.  Where do you click to get your popup
menus when there are no open windows?

Another thing that scares me.  Customizable mice seem fine for a multi
user environment; if I get an account on a new Sun, I copy over my
setup files or whatever and everything is hunky dory, right?  But for
a single user machine, I couldn't imagine what would happen if *my*
mac functioned differently from the one my friend has, which
functioned differently from the one the school has for public use.  

There are definite problems with the Mac interface, such as the grow
box being in the right hand corner and all.  However, these are all a
side effect of the way it was designed.  Ease of use was built in
before Apple realized that power was important too.  I think a three
button mouse would confuse the, uh, counfuse the... stuffing out of
beginners, especially if all three buttons were somehow necessary to
do the most basic, necessary tasks.  

						-Sho

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