Subject: Re: saved replacement texts?

From: [email-masked] (Byron Rakitzis)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 17:03:01 -0500

Actually, this is a gripe of mine also. Forcing the user to use the
mouse is poor design, IMO. e.g., I think that 99% of the time the
overlapping windows in sam are useless. Hence I think it's particularly
pointless that I have to open a file by typing "B file" and then using
the mouse to "sweep" out the new area, when all I'm going to do is
click on the 3rd mouse button. Why isn't that action the default?

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From: Scott Schwartz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:16:20 -0500

| IMO. e.g., I think that 99% of the time the overlapping windows in 
| sam are useless. 

One thing that bothers me is that only the top window has focus, so
letting them peek out from under is unhelpful.  I wind up tiling them,
or just switching back and forth with button-3.  Multiple toplevel X
windows, are probably a better idea for something like sam.  Mxedit
does that, and it works pretty well.  Epoch doesn't do so well, mostly
because people do heavyweight blocking operations (like reading news!)
in one window which block the others; in emacs, since the windows are
in the same frame, it's more obvious that there is one thread of
control for the lot of them.

It's also annoying that moving a window is implemented by resizing,
which makes it hard to just move it without resizing.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:02:03 -0500

From:	[email-masked] (Byron Rakitzis)
    Subject: Re: saved replacement texts?

if that were the default, how would you specify that you _really_
want to sweep a window?

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From: Chris Siebenmann <cks>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:11:38 -0500

Automatic placement of new windows probably isn't the default because
Pike didn't have a good way to do it, especially in sam (it's also
somewhat against the model). I don't really see how to fix that.

	- cks

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From: [email-masked] (Jeremy Fitzhardinge)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:41:17 -0500

> somewhat against the model). I don't really see how to fix that.

An interesting paper to read by Pike is the one on his "Help" system.
He takes quite a different approach based on "sensible defaults" and
"minimal actions".

This means that there is no click to type, because the click used to type
has no purpose, other than as a click.  Likewise, there are no menus,
because pulling up a menu is a waste of a click.

Clicking on a word selects the word, rather than having to drag, since
selecting words is the default action to match the most common operation.
Selecting words is also the way you perform operations.  If you want
to open a file, you select the word "open" anywhere it appears, and do
something to act upon it (can't quite remember).  Therefore, if you
want a menu, you open up a text buffer, and type the menu you want.
Text buffers can be linked to underlying programs, talking through
a special file heirachy (plan 9, of course).  "Underlying programs"
means normal tool-type programs, with rc scripts doing any glueing needed.

"Sensible defaults" also means automatic placement of windows.

While it's very much a prototype with heavy experimentation, it looks
very usable.  There was talk of it being distributed with the academic
Plan 9 release.  Is this so (Matty?)?

	J

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From: Scott Schwartz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:41:55 -0500

|  Automatic placement of new windows probably isn't the default because
| Pike didn't have a good way to do it, especially in sam (it's also
| somewhat against the model). I don't really see how to fix that.

Just for the sake of argument, he could have done what rms did with
emacs, namely replace the current window with the new one.  (Maybe I'm
just hopelessly tainted, but I think a number of emacs' features are
reasonable. :-)

In another instance, if you arrange to get a new toplevel window then
placement is a window manager function, rather than an application
function.  (Insert Rob's complaints about X window managers here. :-)

By the way, maybe we should have a plan-9-wanna-be BOF at usenix?

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From: Scott Schwartz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:46:09 -0500

| An interesting paper to read by Pike is the one on his "Help" system.
| He takes quite a different approach based on "sensible defaults" and
| "minimal actions".

A similar system (which Pike cites in that paper) is Wirth's Oberon
system.  You can ftp it from  neptune.inf.ethz.ch.  It's pretty neat,
well worth playing with for a while, but you need a sparc to run it on.

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From: John (For the colours are many, but the light is one.) Mackin <john@ civil.su.oz.au>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:47:06 -0500

Scott,

This suggestion, I am afraid, is just plain stupid, emacs or no.

You don't want the command window replaced with the window you just
said B about.

Pike did an excellent job designing the sam interface.  The single
click to place the usual edit window is just what you want.  Sometimes,
you want to put the command window in the middle of the top-level
window, and have edit windows above and below.  If you want them to
overlap, you can, although as has been observed here before, tiling
is usually more useful.

It's not broken and doesn't need any fixing.

OK,
John.

---

From: Scott Schwartz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 22:10:13 -0500

| This suggestion, I am afraid, is just plain stupid, emacs or no.
| 
| You don't want the command window replaced with the window you just
| said B about.

Oh come now:  Emacs doesn't let you replace the minibuffer either.  If
there is no file window open, then you would get a fresh one, just as
if you had clicked button-3.  Otherwise, the previously selected file
window would be covered with a new one. 

| It's not broken and doesn't need any fixing.

I wasn't suggesting that anyone start hacking on it, only pointing out
that there are alternatives to the current style interface.

(p.s. I typed this with vi, so there. :-)