On 17 Dec 2003 at 7:26, Phil Daley wrote: > At 12/16/2003 05:25 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: > > >Imagine you are working with several applications at once, say you > have your >email program open with the main window and an open > message in a separate >window, you also have your browser open with > two (full screen) windows, >Finale with a score and two part files, > the System Gui with a couple of >windows, and perhaps your word > processor with another two windows. Now you >want one of your Finale > windows in front, but it is burried somewhere behind >everything > else. The normal way would be to go to the dock (or the Taskbar >in > Windows) select the correct app (or even window in Windows), but it > will >be hard to find. > > I don't get it. Why would it be hard to find? That's how I work all > the time and any window is just a mouse click away.
Mine aren't. Some windows are two clicks away because MS changed the behavior of a click on a taskbar button to toggle the window's state between Restore/Minimize, instead of having the click restore focus to the window represented. > >With Expose I move my mouse into a corner, and all Windows (all > means all, >not just the front application, although that is > possible, too) shrink so >they fit neatly on the screen. The amount > they shrink depends on the number >and size of windows. Due to the > screen vector graphics they even look pretty >good at reduced size. I > can now move the mouse over any one of them and >Expose will tell me > their name. If I click on one it comes to the front >again (and > everything goes back to full size). > > If you hover the mouse over the taskbar, it will give you, not only > the window name, bur also the open document, if, for some reason you > don't know what button to press. I can't imagine not knowing which > button goes to which program window. The point of expose is that it gives you the information without needing to scrub the mouse over taskbar. It gives you that information with an easy mouse movement (going to the hot area in one corner, a corner that is always the same once you set it), rather than with a mouse movement that requires you to navigate horizontally across a vertically narrow space. Also, apparently you don't use any of these applications, which proliferate Windows: 1. Microsoft Office 2000 programs or later. 2. Internet Explorer. All of these programs proliferate taskbar icons, by (ill-conceived) design. WinXP groups windows of a process into single icons accessible through a pop-up menu. When I used IE or Netscape 4.x as my browser, I had this problem all the time, because my style of web browsing tended to proliferate windows. For instance, when I read Salon.com, I go through the front page and open new windows for all the articles I'm interested in reading. Then I read my way through each of them, closing each when finished. With Mozilla, I now open tabs within the single instance of Mozilla, so I no longer have this terrible proliferation of taskbar icons (when they got really tiny and eventually end up with two rows, and a spinner control to switch between the rows). > >I can do the same just for the windows of the front application. I > can also >just hide all windows to see the desktop. > > Yes, that is also a button click on the taskbar. Windows has all > program access on the taskbar. I don't see how it can be more > integrated than that. ??? The feature of accessing child windows of all running apps from a single location is one that Expose has over Windows. WinXP can group multiple windows of one application (i.e., if you open Word and launch 3 documents, they are represented in WinXP as a single taskbar button, whereas in previous versions of Windows, they were three independent buttons), but other versions of Windows cannot. But WinXP *cannot* give access through the taskbar to the document windows of multiple-document interface programs, or to the tabs of Mozilla, for instance. > >The point is I can immediately > >restore all windows to full size, get the one to front which I need. > >I know this sounds as though the functionality is not that different > from >what you can do in Windows by the task bar, but once you have > tried it you >will see that the whole approach is so much better and > quicker than any >taskbar or dock or program switching. > > I doubt it. Sounds like you are happy with what you have simply because you have it. I have always been frustrated by the limitations of the Windows Taskbar, and have complained about it from the very beginning. Apple is trying to solve those problems in its implementation of the onscreen representation of all the programs running, in order to improve navigation between apps. This is a good thing. I hope that when Microsoft copies it, they do better job than with their usually UI copying from Apple. > >This is not about hiding windows or arranging windows, it's about > _finding_ >windows. > > I never lose them, must be a Mac thing. I think you are failing to recognize the very real problems with the taskbar, simply so you can sniff at the real innovation and usefulness of something you've never used. *I've* never used Expose, but it is blazingly obvious to me why it is good! -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
