Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!blake!mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU
From: mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: various AppKit objects
Message-ID: <1675@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: 20 Apr 89 21:26:07 GMT
Sender: news@blake.acs.washington.edu
Organization: Mendou Zaibatsu, Tomobiki-Cho, Butsumetsu-Shi
Lines: 35


     Recently, I wasted hours upon hours of my time trying to get
FormCells in my application to do what I wanted.  I finally gave up
totally, and replaced every last one of them with TextFieldCells and
drew titles next to them.

     Has anyone else gotten the idea that perhaps there are too many
kinds of objects in the Application Kit?  FormCell vs. TextFieldCell
is just one nasty example.  They should be combined into one type of
cell that has titles (the only discernable benefit of FormCells) plus
everything that TextFieldCells have, or at least change FormCell to
inherit from TextFieldCell instead of directly from ActionCell.

     I also object to the duplication caused by the existance of Cells
(and, to a lesser extent, Controls).  The AppKit would be much simpler
to understand and program in if the Cell and Control classes did not
exist.  It might be a little less "efficient" to implement this way,
but human efficiency is more important than a computer's "efficiency."

     In some cases, e.g. Form, there was a well-intentioned idea to
implement something useful but a Form (basically, a Matrix of
FormCells with some added hooks) is significantly less useful than a
Matrix of TextFieldCells.  The latter can either do everything a
FormCell does or can give a reasonable simulation.  We could abolish
the Form class as well, and put the title stuff into Matrix so it's
useful for other entities as well!

     I recognize it's too late to see this happen, but at least I hope
to see the relatively simple change of having FormCell inherit from
TextFieldCell...

Mark Crispin / P.O. Box 2652 / Seattle, WA 98111-2652 / (206) 842-2385
mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU / MRC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil
450cc Rebel pilot -- a step up from 250cc's!!!
kisha no kisha ga kisha de kisha-shita...tabesaserarenakerebanaranakattarashii