Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!mp1u+ From: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Standard File Requesters Message-ID: Date: 9 May 89 18:50:21 GMT References: <0914.AA0914@amigash> <941@sactoh0.UUCP>, <11583@well.UUCP> Distribution: na Organization: Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 50 In-Reply-To: <11583@well.UUCP> shf@well.UUCP (Stuart H. Ferguson) writes: > How about a "filerequester.library?" Stuart, with all due respect, I would like to make one important point: Graphical UI != File Requester in a Library How about instead of a "filerequester.library", we create a shared library named "intuitiontools.library", which contains some high-level user interface tools for intuition. A File Requester, code to manage menus (I seem to remember you write some really fine menu management code that would go nicely into this library), tools to make building requesters easier, compound Intuition gadgets (such as scroll bars) built using Intuition's atomic gadgets, etc. To me, Intuition's biggest problem is that it doesn't provide enough support for a lot of higher-level UI stuff. A shared library containing code to do a lot of this stuff will 1) save programmers a lot of work, 2) result in more efficient use of system resources since only one copy of the code will be shared among multiple applications, 3) Bring more UI standardization to Amiga programs, 4) Allow hackers to customize the "Standard" interface using SetFunction(), and 5) Allow the UI of all application programs on the system to be upgraded merely by upgrading the library. A bigger problem with the Intuition + graphics libraries is that the only text support outside the console device (which is basically terminal emulation) is Text(). A text.library which contained code to manage text buffers + the necessary display handling code which would allow you to attach a text object to a window or gadget would be a wonderful tool for application developers as well. I suspect the reason the Mac has such wonderful word processors and DTP packages is that the Mac OS (as it were) gives developers a lot of system support for text handling. A primary component of the Andrew Toolkit (a user interface toolkit for Unix + X11 that was developed here at the ITC) is its Text object. > Stuart Ferguson (shf@well.UUCP) > Action by HAVOC -- Michael Portuesi * Information Technology Center * Carnegie Mellon University INTERNET: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu * BITNET: mp1u+@andrew UUCP: ...harvard!andrew.cmu.edu!mp1u+ MAIL: Carnegie Mellon University, P.O. Box 259, Pittsburgh, PA 15213