In article <shhg50t59qu1pn7a21ffg57vhgqfsngbnq@4ax.com> , Peter Popov 
<pet### [at] vipbg>  wrote:

>>Photoshop never featured a root window on the operating system it was
>>orginally designed for.
>
> I believe it was not the case back when I used it on MacOS 7
> (PhotoShop 2.5.1 and 3.0).

I am not sure which way to read this.  Either way, Mac OS never had anything
like windows inside windows.

> I am aware of the fact this is so on MacOS
> X but you have to agree, if you have ever used the GIMP, that the
> difference in useability and workflow is vast.

I am not sure which way to read this.  Does GIMP have windows inside windows
in its Mac OS X port?  That would imply it is one of those crappy Trolltech
Qt framework applications.  Note that the Trolltech Qt framework does not
draw system windows.  It draws everything itself and provides a miserable
user experience on both Windows and Mac OS X whenever it tries to emulate
things not available on the platform natively (or the GUI changes like with
Windos XP or less so in Mac OS X 10.3).   On Mac OS applications that do not
follow the look and feel of the system will be avoided by users like hell,
and they tend to get bad reviews unless the reviewer was paid or is no
regular Mac OS user.

> Of course one should
> solely attribute it to lacking a root window because Adobe shows how
> it can be done well.

Well, ever notice the "Mac"-mode of Photoshop for Windows that places the
menu bar at the top of the screen and makes the root window cover
everything?

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

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Among other things, Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

>> Really? Can you please point examples?
> 
> Internet Explorer? Outlook Express - I noticed when writing that post on
> Windos, actually - the window in which I types was independent.

One of the big annoyances (for me) of IE and Netscape... It was one of the 
reasons I switched to Opera at first.

As for the Gimp, I'm getting used to it, but I agree it's a bit weird when 
you come from the Hasefroch [1] world.

[1] See <217.125.124.74/~hsfroch/english.html> or its google cache: 
<http://tinyurl.com/34yeg>

-- 
light_source{9+9*x,1}camera{orthographic look_at(1-y)/4angle 30location
9/4-z*4}light_source{-9*z,1}union{box{.9-z.1+x clipped_by{plane{2+y-4*x
0}}}box{z-y-.1.1+z}box{-.1.1+x}box{.1z-.1}pigment{rgb<.8.2,1>}}//Jellby

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On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 10:52:13 -0600, "Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> wrote:

>Have you considered using another WM under KDE?

I have icewm installed but am not quite sure how to configure KDE to
use it, and still do it "the Debian way". KDE seems to ignore the
/etc/alternatives/x-window-manager link which kind of puzzles me. I'll
look into it further when I have the time.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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In article <405832a2@news.povray.org>, tho### [at] trfde says...
> Of course, Microsoft has long abandoned this nonsense for most
> of their applications...
> 
I assume you are joking? lol Seriously, some cases it is nice to have 
floating windows. However, I don't use IE, Netscape, Mozilla or anything 
else that opens more than one window without my permission. For browsers 
not having a master window (or worse having it decide to create a new one 
for no damn reason) is a pain in the ass. Same imho for programs for 
photo editing or any other application where you *want* a single key 
window that everything else sits on top of.

Good design = using windows in ways that make sense.

Bad design = using windows in some way just because "that's what everyone 
is used to, so it must be right".

Gimp gets it wrong in one way imho, so does most of the stuff MS has made 
over the years in the opposite direction.

Then again, I am trying to run Gimp under 98, which is, "not suggested", 
and not only have most of my tool windows vanished someplace recently, 
but it won't print either. Sigh...

-- 
void main () {

    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Peter Popov <pet### [at] vipbg> wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 12:11:02 +0100, "Thorsten Froehlich"
><tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
>
>>Photoshop never featured a root window on the operating system it was
>>orginally designed for.
>
> I believe it was not the case back when I used it on MacOS 7
> (PhotoShop 2.5.1 and 3.0). I am aware of the fact this is so on MacOS
> X but you have to agree, if you have ever used the GIMP, that the
> difference in useability and workflow is vast. Of course one should
> solely attribute it to lacking a root window because Adobe shows how
> it can be done well. But on MacOS X it actually makes sense. In KDE,
> it does not (nor in Windows).

That's because KDE tries its hardest to be Windows. Thankfully, there are
plenty of window managers for X that don't, and the authors of the Gimp
recognize this. Besides, you *can* use hacks such as xnest to get the
behavior you want, which is pretty cool when you think about it. Even
better, I understand that Gimp 2.0 features dockable windows, which allow
you to get whatever behavior you want.

>>Of course, Microsoft has long abandoned this nonsense for most
>>of their applications...
>
> Really? Can you please point examples?

The "bunch of windows in a single window" paradigm is called Multiple
Document Interface (MDI), and I'll confess that I hate it. I've been hearing
a lot lately about Microsoft urging developers to move away from it, but
aside from the lack of MDI in newer versions of Word, I haven't found much
proof to back this up. It could be wishful thinking on the part of User
Interface advocates, but I doubt MS would publicize their change of heart
after convincing everybody to start using it.

-Eamon

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On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 21:42:51 +0100, "Thorsten Froehlich"
<tho### [at] trfde> wrote:

>Internet Explorer? Outlook Express - I noticed when writing that post on
>Windos, actually - the window in which I types was independent.

Not the same thing. Imagine how Outlook Express would look if the
groups pane, the threads pane and the message pane were all separate
floating windows and the menu was, for example, in the threads pane
(but some simple menu is also located in the groups/servers pane).

>The same goes for recent versions of Office. And M$ Developer Studio can 
>only have one project open per instance, so it is a hybrid (it also 
>uses windows in a window).

Yeah, but a single project is contained within a single window. Modal
dialogs etc. do not really count because they make sense in any
context (rootless or not).

>The point has much less to do with windows inside windows, but with the
>location of the menu bar.

Precisely what other PS/OSX users have pointed. I am very much aware
of that fact and this has always been a big pro of MacOS design. I
personally don't like it simply because I almost don't use menus (at
least not with the mouse), but I have witnessed with my own eyes what
difference it makes for the average user.

>Anyway, as any usability discussion in these groups in the past lead
>nowhere other than showing surprising amounts of ignorance of the validity
>of objective studies versus personal perception, I try to avoid any detailed 
>discussion of the subject.

Unless you think I have manifested said ignorance, I would gladly take
this over email if you please so as I really want to get some more
perspective on the issue.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 21:56:17 +0100, "Thorsten Froehlich"
<tho### [at] trfde> wrote:

>I am not sure which way to read this.  Either way, Mac OS never had anything
>like windows inside windows.

You're right it does not. What I meant was that the menu was on top,
then the workspace covered the screen and inside the workspace were
the work windows & palettes. That's how I seem to remember it.

>I am not sure which way to read this.

Sorry, I was unclear. See below.

>Does GIMP have windows inside windows in its Mac OS X port?

Nope. But it doesn't have a background workspace either. And the way
menus work, the way window focus works (in PhotoShop the image windows
is always in focus) as well as the way shortcuts *don't* work if the
image window is blurred, all of those are literally killers for work
flow and useability.

>That would imply it is one of those crappy Trolltech
>Qt framework applications.

Not the GIMP :). The GIMP was the reason to come up with GTK and Gnome
in the first place. GTK, around which Gnome is based on, stands for
the Gimp ToolKit (or something similar). Basically GIMP was first
based on MOTIF, which was at the time commercial (no LessTiff yet) and
the developers designed their own framework which later became the
base of Gnome (mainly because it was free, as opposed to Qt)

>Note that the Trolltech Qt framework does not draw system windows.
>It draws everything itself and provides a miserable user experience on
>both Windows and Mac OS X whenever it tries to emulate things not 
>available on the platform natively (or the GUI changes like with
>Windos XP or less so in Mac OS X 10.3).

Would you mind sharing some experience over email? Qt is one of the
frameworks I am currently focusing my attention at, and of course the
only stuff I can find online are praises (marketing, you know...) I'd
love to hear from someone who have burned their fingers with it as a
developer and/or as a user.

BTW every single cross-platform framework that I have ever considered
- Java, wxWindows, GTK+, Qt has had quite a bash from you -- are they
really that bad and is there one that doesn't have their problems?

>On Mac OS applications that do not
>follow the look and feel of the system will be avoided by users like hell,
>and they tend to get bad reviews unless the reviewer was paid or is no
>regular Mac OS user.

I know. This is my biggest nightmare at the moment. I have to design a
GUI for Windows/Mac (and eventually Linux, but Linux GUI is by
definition not well defined :) ) that:
  a) is stylish and elegant,
  b) looks native on both platforms
  c) is not as choppy and blocky as Windows
  d) is not as balooney, colorful and slightly childish as MacOS X
  e) is coherent in a cross-platform user environment (meaning minimal
switching effort between the  Win and Mac versions)

>Well, ever notice the "Mac"-mode of Photoshop for Windows that places the
>menu bar at the top of the screen and makes the root window cover
>everything?

When one PhotoShops, one barely does much else in parallel so it
totally makes sense that way. I shudder at the thought of having NO
workspace and having to find, for example, the Lasso tool on screen
with all the mess of windows in the background (normally chess,
winamp, ICQ, email, Agent, some browsers, Acrobat Reader) with nothing
to cover them while I am actually photoshopping.

I am sure that with the right window manager I can get the same from
the GIMP running in a nested server fullscreen (in KDE - borderless
window). I just have to find one that allows the menubar on top of the
screen and is not as ugly as my ex-mother-in-law.

Really, if you feel you have the time for some more discussion on the
subject, please drop me a line. I'm always open to others' experience
and points of view.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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On 17 Mar 2004 23:51:18 -0500, Eamon Caddigan <eca### [at] uiucedu>
wrote:

>The "bunch of windows in a single window" paradigm is called Multiple
>Document Interface (MDI), and I'll confess that I hate it. 

Me too, but I am not talking about that. I am complaining about the
"bunch of palettes and windows all over the desktop" paradigm of the
GIMP, which is as I see it the biggest issue people have with it (and
are flamed for when complaining :) ). It has nothing to do with MDI.

To use the Word analogy, imagine Word with a separate window per
document (as it is now), each document window having its own menu bar
(as it is now) BUT having every single toolbar floating somewhere on
the screen and operating on the currently focused document, if any --
if none is in focus things get worse. Not only will one have 5-6 more
windows to deal with which neither alt-tab nor taskbar grouping will
cure, but also one would have to aim mouseclicks with even more sniper
precision that is already required for using Windows.

So Office, IE, OE etc. are not good examples of the problem I am
illustrating. The Gimp is. Winamp is also using the same approach but
thankfully, one only has to operate it once every few minutes (maybe
even less if one has a remote control :) ) so it is much less
noticeable. Tt actually would not make much sense to have Winamp take
your whole screen a-la PhotoShop just for playing mp3s.


Peter Popov ICQ : 15002700
Personal e-mail : pet### [at] vipbg
TAG      e-mail : pet### [at] tagpovrayorg

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Peter Popov <pet### [at] vipbg> wrote:
> Yes, that solves the problem of lacking a root window but doesn't
> solve the alt-tab annoyance.

  I don't understand what's this "alt-tab annoyance" of yours.

  If you have tons of windows in your root window and you don't like
focusing them by clicking, you will have to browse through them
anyways (in applications with a "root window" usually you do this
with ctrl-tab). How is this different from using Gimp in a virtual
desktop? I really don't get it.
  If I want to switch to another different application, I just switch to
the virtual desktop where that application is in.

-- 
plane{-x+y,-1pigment{bozo color_map{[0rgb x][1rgb x+y]}turbulence 1}}
sphere{0,2pigment{rgbt 1}interior{media{emission 1density{spherical
density_map{[0rgb 0][.5rgb<1,.5>][1rgb 1]}turbulence.9}}}scale
<1,1,3>hollow}text{ttf"timrom""Warp".1,0translate<-1,-.1,2>}//  - Warp -

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In article <j4mi505o8bqtsbjue6dl9ndq1rp1esd3l0@4ax.com> , Peter Popov 
<pet### [at] vipbg>  wrote:

>>Internet Explorer? Outlook Express - I noticed when writing that post on
>>Windos, actually - the window in which I types was independent.
>
> Not the same thing. Imagine how Outlook Express would look if the
> groups pane, the threads pane and the message pane were all separate
> floating windows and the menu was, for example, in the threads pane
> (but some simple menu is also located in the groups/servers pane).

But those are panes, not windows!  Of course you should not arbitrarily
sprinkle content between multiple windows.  Some common sense really helps,
and it has nothing to do with windows inside windows - panes are not
windows.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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