On 15 Mar 2004 at 12:56, Brad Beyenhof wrote: > On Monday, March 15, 2004, at 12:22 PM, Aaron Sherber wrote: > > > At 03:17 PM 3/15/2004, Darcy James Argue wrote: > > >Not entirely -- I'd just like to see new windows stacked when the > > first > > >window is maximized. > > > > And this is exactly how WinFin works (as well as other Windows > > apps), so it's something that Coda is familiar with. > > Only if the window is maximized (which they all are by default). If > you "restore" a document window (the button in between "close" and > "maximize"), they're cascaded. > > Finale for Windows reeks of the *really old* MS Word MDI (Multiple > Document Interface). Tabs would be so much better, especially as > they've caught on so well for web browsers.
The "new" Word SDI (single document interface) was one of the biggest steps backward in usability that there ever was. To fix the problems inherent in it, Microsoft had to change the OS, which in WinXP can group windows by parent application. This is one of those clever fixes to a problem that never should have existed in the first place -- the SDI introduced in Office 2K was simply a bloody stupid application of "MAKE IT LIKE A WEB BROWSER." As the proliferation of browsers with tabbed interfaces (as well as add-ins to give Microsoft's Internet Explorer the same functionality), it is obvious to everyone now (as it should have been from the very beginning of the introduction of SDI in web browsers) that the SDI is just not a very manageable way of presenting child windows of a single application. The Microsoft MDI has its problems, but they are minor compared to the usability problems for users caused by a proliferation of windows. Tabs would have been a perfect way to make multiple windows in an MDI application more easily navigable, and Opera was the first to do this. Mozilla's tabbed interface is far easier, though, as it demotes the controls for the child windows to a less confusing location (rather than immediately below the parent window, the close X is next to the row of tabs, and there's no capability for sizing child windows separately, or for running at any size other than the size of the parent window; for a browser, this is no loss at all, but it would be for other applications). -- 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
