Re: Mac OS X UI
Re: Mac OS X UI
- Subject: Re: Mac OS X UI
- From: Chilton Webb <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 10:30:24 -0500
On Friday, September 14, 2001, at 10:06 PM, email@hidden wrote:
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.
--
I'd go so far as to pose this question:
On a modern operating system, where we protect one application's memory
(from another program's access), one applications events (from another
hogging the cpu), why do we allow *ANYTHING* to take control itself away
from the user?
If it's something really important, it can pop up a little window like
the PowerBook's 'battery is dead -- yer screwed' message box (which
gives me roughly .4 seconds before powering off my system entirely for
me).
At least in those few circumstances where I'm able to use my computer
for more than a few blinks of an eye, I can see the error up in the
corner of the screen, but it doesn't prevent me from typing in a
document.
It just seems odd to me that we have this excellent paradigm of
isolation and focus, which applies to everything but the most important
part--what the user is doing.
That's why I'm sticking to modeless dialogs for all of my document
windows from now on (*kidding* -- that probably wouldn't help anyway).
-Chilton