Re: Of applications and documents

[Sheldon Gill]

Perhaps I can help this discussion along somewhat.

I understand what Mr Bordoley is getting at, and it's something that I
largely agree with. The whole issue of managing complexity and effective
interaction of machines and humans is a large field and moving away from the
topic.

What he is alluding to can be largely supported in without changing things
very much at all and without requiring too much work from application
programmers if the underlying operating system supports the key concepts.

Allow me to offer a concrete example to illustrate:

There is a concept from the mac world referred to as "Document
Synchronisity", or DocSynch for short. There is an application here:
http://www.iinet.net.au/~sheldon/STPlus-2.2b1.sit.hqx which runs under Mac
OS 8.5+

So to see it you'll need to be in front of a mac for a little while. That
shouldn't be too hard to arrange. Pay with it while considering the
following:

The Icon & the Document & the File are one!
-------------------------------------------
Each document has an icon to represent it. It can be the default or one
custom assigned. There are utilities which help you create new ones. The
icon for the document appears in the "Window" menu of the application when
it's open. The document icon is also in the window's title bar. If the
document has a custom icon, it'll be shown as such.

You can rename the document in the finder. If you do, you'll notice that the
name of document in the application will also change. Watch the window title
bar when you edit the name. In a few seconds they'll match. Look in the
"Window" menu as see it's changed there too.

The window manager has a concept of 'proxy icons'. The icon in the window's
title bar can be manipulated just like Finder icons. If you command click on
the proxy icon it'll pop up a menu showing the folder heirarchy and volume
for the document (it's path).

Move the document in the Finder. Command click on the proxy icon in the
document window. You'll notice that it's tracked the change. You've moved a
file while editing it! This is a significant behaviour improvement. In
*nix/windows, if you go konqueror/explorer and move the file you are editing
and then hit save you'll get the edits in the original location!

This support allows you to do the following sort of thing:

Drag a copy of a file containing some basic data (a template).
Double click on it to start editing
Give the file an appropriate new name. Move it to where it should be.

Although STPlus doesn't remember the window size (it's easy to do) the
Finder does remember where the icon goes and what size/shape the directory
window containing it was. So if you put the icon in the lower left of the
Finder's window (directory window) it'll be there when you open it again.

This means that you can remember the "place" you put it without having to
remember what it's called. If it's got a nice stand out custom icon you can
visually pick up on that much more quickly than scanning for names. The
other benefit of this "remembering" is that it's the same as it was when the
user left it. That makes sense to humans. Your filing cabinet isn't
re-ordered when you leave the room.

Finally, having played around with a document try dragging the icon to the
trash and see what happens!

This is a little less structured than I had hoped for but the key things I
think are:

(1) Maintain the idea that the "icon" for the document _is_ the document and
that the user can manipulate it and have it behave in expected ways.

(2) Allow the user can then focus on the document and the task rather than
the application and foreign computer imposed semantics.

(3) Changes should be consistent and reflected quickly.

>The key with toplevel menus is to reorganize them to be more document
friendly. I'm a big fan of the macintosh single menubar design. One idea
i've had floating around in my head is:

>New File Edit View Help

First problem is that the single menubar at the top is copyright Apple so
_nobody_ else can use it. They've threatened people in the past.

The order of menu items etc and why is explained in the Mac HIG and
elsewhere so I won't repeat it but I will point this out:

A big part of the "ease of use" on the mac is by applications adhering to
the standards and conventions. If every application has the same menu order
and puts items in the same places as far as possible then it becomes easier
for everyone.

Anyway, what you're really are suggesting here David is writing a
'Finder-alike' with more sophisticated features and behaviours. That's a
large task and one that gnustep currently isn't complete enough to
undertake.


Regards,
Sheldon