Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!mailrus!ames!oliveb!tymix!antares!jms
From: jms@antares.UUCP (joe smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Talking to Workbench (snapshot)
Keywords: icon position
Message-ID: <300@antares.UUCP>
Date: 10 Dec 88 04:02:38 GMT
References: <1606@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Reply-To: jms@antares.UUCP (joe smith)
Organization: Tymnet QSATS, San Jose CA
Lines: 49

In article <1606@nmtsun.nmt.edu> wncs302@nmtsun.nmt.edu (William Norris) writes:
>As long as we're talking about WB facelifting:
>	*	Get rid of snapshot.
>					William B. Norris IV

I hope you were referring to using the snapshot option to force an icon's
position.  As others have mentioned, you want to keep the ability to modify
and remember the size and position of the window that opens when a disk or
drawer icon is double clicked.

A reason for not having icon positions is that Workbench will automatically
arrange them in the window where they line up and don't overlap.  The
disadvantage of doing this is that no icons show up until the last one is read
in.  All icons with explicit positions show up in the window as they are
found, but the positionless ones cannot be drawn until after all of the fixed
position icons have been drawn.

You don't want to completely eliminate icon positions, because sometimes it is
desirable to have icons arranged in a particular order.  For instance, the
icons on the Express Paint disk line up to make a choo-choo train (cute!).

What I would like to see is an "unsnapshot" option in the Workbench menu that
makes the selected icon(s) free-floating.  (I want it in the menu, not as a
seperate program.)  I want to be able to tell Workbench to memorize the window
size/position using a menu item that is distinct from the item that snapshot's
the disk/drawer icon position.  (The current method is ambiguous, especially
if the icon got unselected when you clicked inside the window.)  And an option
for window's .info that says that this window does not honor fixed position
icons.  The latter bit means that it is OK for Workbench to draw all icons as
they are found, including the ones with no position.

The end result is that Workbench users could choose whether they want manually
positioned icons or to let Workbench position them automatically.  Getting
rid of "snapshot" would eliminate that choice, which is not good.

Somebody from CBM mentioned that they are working on making Workbench
multitasking in 1.4.  Considerring how the system slows down when mulitple
tasks read directories (due to contraproductive seeks), I would rather have
a pre-emptive Workbench.  That is, if you click on a drawer icon while
Workbench is still looking for the rest of the .info files, it should stop
what it is doing, remember where it was, and process the new window.  It should
not resume processing the first window until it is completely finished doing
disk accesses for the latest window.  Holding off on the first window is
something I think is mandatory if we want reasonable response from floppies.
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