From: cj00+@andrew.cmu.edu (Carl B Jabido)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT
Date: 6 Oct 92 06:15:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.EeoNyDq00WB5J5V6om
Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.mac.advocacy: 6-Oct-92 Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2
and Window.. by Daniel N. Johnson@jec324 
> Ok. There IS an equivalent to this in the Macintosh, but it is
> VERY rarely used because you generally dont have that many
> options in one window, and if you did it would be nicer to have more
> than one window. The thing you do is emulate the old-style control
> panel. You have a vertical stack of named icons on the left, and
> a scrollbar. You select an icon and the relevant controls appear
> on teh right. Word5 does this, so does MacDraw Pro, I think. Its
> not that common. Main problem is that icons ALREADY mean something
> in the MacOS (there those thing you double click :) So it
> can be a bit confusing. Maybe the notebook thing is better.

Yeah, I remember that Microsoft used it in Word for Windows 2.0.
  
> |> > Whereas with stationary you define your own. I dont see
> |> > why you need this special template thing tho- u couild just
> |> > double click the app. Poof, new document. No need for extra
> |> > objects.
> |> 
> |> You can define your own, but the standard template is always there for a
> |> user who doesn't want to make it.
>  
> Ok. Can you take the templates and put it somewhere else? Say, make
> SEVERAL template folders? That could help.

Good idea, I never though of that.  Yeah, you could make a general
templates folder, where you have a text templates folder, numbers folder
(like for Mathematica or Spreadsheets), a graphics folder, etc.  That
would be nice.
  
> |> About the your confusion about the need for templates.  Remeber that the
> |> final implementation will isolate the user from apps.  In that
> |> situation, there will be no apps to double click on.  Right now, you can
> |> double click the app, and templates are just another way of creating a
> |> new doc.  There has to be a transition point: 
> |> old way            transition point           new way
> |> dbl-click apps     dbl-click and templates    templates only
>  
> I see. (ya know, this is how the Lisa did it- except it wasn't
> templates it was statiary, and you double-clicked it);

I guess whether or not you like it depends on who you are.
  
> do teh templates provide a way to name a new file? Like, you drag
> the template to the appropriate fodler and a dialog comes up asking for
> a name, say? Or do you just rename the created file?
  
It depends.  Most document templates don't open a dialog.  It comes off
called Describe Document or Text Document or whatever, and you just
rename the file.  Other templates, especially ones that need to be
configured (like printers, program objects, etc) do open a dialog, and
in addition to the name, it asks you the other stuff it needs to know.

> It seems to me that this is basically nice, but templates
> add an unnecessary complexity- the app itself could be its
> own (basic) template. This would make it obvious that you cant
> create a document if you dont have the app for it.

Yeah, you could do that.  Again, it's just a difference of philosophy.
  
> |> > Well, if thats all its not so bad. Sounds like that fodler
> |> > could get cluttered.
> |> 
> |> OS/2 has several ways of organizing folders.  First, there's the way
> |> used in Mac and Windows: Just organize them so there's no overlapping
> |> icons or whatever.  OS/2 can also let you "flow": which means to let the
> |> icons flow down vertically down the folder, so you get a long folder
> |> which has a vertical scroll bar, and you just scroll up or down.  It's
> |> alphabetical so you can find it easier.  
>  
> I meant there could be too many files in one folder, so you'd ahve
> to much about to find anything.

See above for putting sub-folders etc for templates.

> Incidentally, I didn't realize OS/2 would always "organize" things for
> you; Can you just stick an icon somewhere if you like?
> [ps this flow thing is very similar to the "view-by-name or whatever"
> in the finder, except in the finder it still remember where your icons
> WHERE, so if you switch back everything is still froody. And you
> can expand the folders out, of course.]

Well, there's an option to automatically sort the window, or you can
just put it wherever you want.

> Also, can you flow by other things (ya know, size, kind, etc? I use
> view-by kind a lot myself in the Finder)

Same thing in OS/2; it's sort-by.  Sort-by can do size, date, type, real
name, last write date, last write time, last access time, last access
date, creation date, and finally creation time.
  
> |> > |> Yeah, that's why if you right-click on a folder or something,
it'll ha
> ve
> |> > |> an option, create.  That's a cascaded menu (brings up another
menu) an
> d
> |> > |> you can choose folder, and you get another folder.  
> |> >  
> |> > That doesn't sound a convinient as a new folder command EITHER. :)
> |> 
> |> I think it's more intuitive though.  If for example, you want to create
> |> a new folder on the desktop, you right click on the desktop (to bring up
> |> the properties menu) and choose create:folder.  You don't have to click,
> |> go up to the menu, and then choose new folder.
> |> It's not much slower.
>  
> I didn't mean slower. I meant convinient. Mucking around in heriarchial
> menus is (imho) a royal pain (tho maybe OS/2 has better heirarchials
> than the mac does); Also its worth mentioning that these pop ups
> are invisible. It isn't clear how you create a folder; one of the
> advantages of menubars is that can see when they are present, and
> browse them easily.

I don't know if this is any better, but OS/2 has conditional hierarchal
menus, where if you want to open the cascaded menu, you move the cursor
over the little button and then it opens the menu.  It's just the same
as in twm for x.
  
> |> > Ok, I get it. CAn these palettes be used on things IN a document?
> |> 
> |> I don't see why not.  There are limits to what you can do in a 1.0
> |> release though, so I don't see many apps doing that.  For the most part,
> |> apps have their own things for changing fonts/colors etc.  It would be
> |> nice though, and yet another thing to unify the system.
>  
> But htis is OS/2 >2<.0. :)

But Workplace Shell 1.0 is what I was referring to.

> |> Caching: yeah it can be done.  The standard OS/2 cache is about 128k. 
> |> Attributes like icons, title, background color, foreground color, fonts
> |> etc, are stored as part of the file and called Extended Attributes, or
> |> EA's.  EA's are about 4000 bytes depending on folder.  This can add up
> |> and of course, there are other things in the cache, so the attributes
> |> will probably be out of the cache in a few minutes anyway.
>  
> Uh, this sounds like a Disk Cache. The finder maintains a SEPARATE
> store of icons inside of itself.

That's really nice, but being a memory hog (for now at least), having
more main memory would help more than another cache.

> Incidentally- about Extended Attributes. These sound quite a bit
> like a cross between MAc Finder Info and Resource Forks. Can
> you elaborate a little bit? If OS/2 has resource forks, I may
> just belive that someone out there has a brain. :)

Gordon Letwin is the brain behind HPFS (I think) and he is now working
on NT instead of OS/2.  Sometime last semester, he posted something
about how HPFS is supposed to be faster than the file system used in
Unix.  They looked at the Unix file system and tried to improve it. 
About EA's, they can basically hold any info you want 'em to.  I don't
know much about 'em, and this is all from memory, so it can be wrong.
BTW, gordon is gordonl@microsoft.com (I think)

> |> > Incidentally, the Macintosh desktop is also a folder. (but internally
> |> > the arrangement is odd)
> |> 
> |> Really? Never knew that.
>  
> Yeah. As a matter of fact, its more than one folder. in Reality (tm)
> the file system is split up by volume; But each volume contains
> 2 special folders: Desktop and Trash. The Desktop's of all mounted
> volumes are combined and displayed on screen; therefore dragging something
> from a floppy to a desktop does not copy the file (although for
> remote servers, it does copy it but it warns you first); This means
> that if you put something on the desktop from a floppy directly, its
> still on the floppy and when u eject that floppy the icon vanishes.
> (And when you replace it, the icon reappears); The same is true for
> the trash. the finder and standard file routines maintain an illusion for
> the user however that the system is all one big file-tree, starting
> at the Desktop (which contains all mounted volumes and the trash as
> well as anything else you like- that part is fudged, there isn't
> really a trash in each desktop, or aliases to volumes, or whatnot)
>  
> Note that this is Sys 7 only. Previously, the mechanism was
> different (there was a bit in the finder flags that said
> "hey, Im on the desktop!") and teh standard file dialogs did NOT
> reflect the desktop. (which stank. But its all better now! :)