Re: Mac OS X UI
Re: Mac OS X UI
- Subject: Re: Mac OS X UI
- From: email@hidden
- Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 21:06:22 -0600
On Friday, September 14, 2001, at 08:12 , cocoa-dev-
email@hidden wrote:
GCM> you could get users quite visually confused*.
Not really, provided of course that the key/main/inactive windows are
properly visually distinguished.
GCM> * Like currently when Mail v1.0 can't connect to the POP server
and pops
GCM> an inactive alert window above all other windows while not
changing it
GCM> to key focus and you end up messing with you hidden document
before you
GCM> realize you have to stop key tapping and start mousing for the 'ok'
GCM> button.
I have to agree with Ondra, but I'll add that the case he describes is
probably THE MOST FRUSTRATING situation that any GUI ever confronts me
with: I am happily typing along, when a background thread decides it's
time to steal the input focus just because it has some important
information to convey to me. I can't tell you how many times such dialog
boxes consume the typing I'm doing, leaving me without any idea what
questions I answered nor how I answered them. I think that the input
focus is an attribute of a window system that should never ever mutate
without an intentional, temporally local input from the user.
So, I believe that the behavior that you describe "is not a bug; it's a
feature", without the usual sarcasm that I attach to the phrase.