Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!unisoft!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Need some MF help
Message-ID: <6922@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 8 Apr 89 10:34:56 GMT
References: <1562@neoucom.UUCP> <28399@apple.Apple.COM> <43464@XAIT.Xerox.COM> <1227@internal.Apple.COM> <43549@XAIT.Xerox.COM> <28586@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Distribution: na
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 44

In article <28586@apple.Apple.COM> lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) writes:
>The lastest MultiFinder adds a Set Aside item to the Apple menu.  Slecting
>this hides all the applications and grays out the application icon in the
>Apple menu.  Holding down the Option key changes the item to Set Aside
>Others.  If you do this in the Finder, then you will have access to all the
>Finder icons (subject to where Finder windows are).  There are other
>power-user features, but that's the basic idea.
>
>Set Aside gives the user a way to click on the icons, even if an
>application's window happens to be covering them, although it requires 1
>extra step.  

Provided, that is, that you're a power user and someone has explained
the feature to you.  The term "Set Aside" in the menu is meaningless
without an explanation, but it suggests that you shouldn't use it
unless you know how to "Bring Back".  Most users of computers are not
power users and are afraid to try things that they can't figure out
beforehand, even if it's less scary-sounding than "Set Aside".

Sorry, Larry, but this is not a solution.  The only real solution on
the table is to modify the Finder so that it conforms to the Macintosh
User Interface Guidelines.  You would think Apple would *want* to do
this instead of applying a half-baked patch to the problem.

The word on the street is that the Finder code is godawfully bad and no
one can understand it well enough to make major changes.  If that's the
real reason Apple isn't willing to bring the Finder into line with
other applications, then it is well within the resources of Apple to
rewrite the Finder from scratch.  But please, spare us these lame-o
power-user-only pseudo-solutions.  I can't think of anything less
Mac-like.

>As always, the price you pay for not listening to the "thought police" is a
>risk that your program won't work as you might desire on future systems.

The price of being in the "thought police" is that people expect you to
police your own thoughts as well.  Otherwise you risk them thinking you
are a hypocrite.  (Not you in particular, Larry, but Apple in general
seems to have a policy of preaching but never practicing.)
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"Our newest idol, the Superman, celebrating the death of godhead, may be
 younger than the hills; but he is as old as the shepherds."
    - Shaw, "On Diabolonian Ethics"