From: Rebecca and Rowland (rebecca@ASTRID.U-NET.COM)
Date: 26 Nov 98, 20:57 EST
From: Rebecca and Rowland <rebecca@ASTRID.U-NET.COM> Subject: Re: ** Excellent suggestion ** >Rowland, > >I see scrolling list-type dialogs like the Extension Manager or >the Find File application display as being the best all-round >solution for Alpha's large sets of options. I think that they >could take care of all the items you mentioned (including the >area of keybindings) in such a way as to avoid the software >bloat that tabbed dialogs imply (to me a least). In other >words, to super-develop the Macintosh list control for Alpha's >purposes and then use instances of it for anything appropriate. Hmm... I still think that a tabbed dialogue box has a place - perhaps the two methods could be combined? It's useful to have as much navigation information as possible displayed on screen at one in situations like this, so you can see what's what. Obviously, since Alpha is extensible, it's not possible to have links to all possible `sections' displayed at once. Perhaps it would be appropriate to have one of the dialogue tabs leading you to a list of the sort you mention? >Given that there is already a font for displaying keyboard >commands (via Mercutio) it seems possible to have a dictionary >of Alpha's procs & bindings displayed in a list such that the >user can attain brief (Balloon) or full (disclosure arrow) >information about the item(s) in question and also change the >bindings at whim. It would be good to have a brief description available next to the key binding. Without that, I think a list of key bindings would be useless. >I'm not sure of the limits of text in Balloon Help, but it's >possible to have ~32k of text in a stock Dialog Manager item or >with a WASTE implementation, megs of text. > >I suggest that you make a point of visiting a Mac with System 8 >or greater installed on it and look at the Extensions Manager >Control Panel to get a first hand look at just one of the >possibilites of the implementation of the list control. Is there any major difference between the System 8 Extensions Manager and the System 7.6 version? (the 7.6 version is utterly different to the 7.5 version, and sounds exactly the same as what you described). [snip] Rowland.