Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Date: Mon,  5 Oct 1992 01:17:15 -0400 
From: Carl B Jabido <cj00+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2 and Windows NT

Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.mac.advocacy: 5-Oct-92 Re: 7.1 vs. OS/2
and Window.. by Daniel N. Johnson@vccnw0 
> |> About Multiple Document Interface, or MDI, I think I'd rather do without
> |> it.  It's okay for small resolutions, like 640x480, but at 1024x768 with
> |> a 17 inch screen, it just gets complicated.  I'd rather be able to
> |> organize my screen by document, rather than application.  For example,
> |> if I'm working on a document such as a newsletter, or presentation,
> |> it'll contain graphics, text, numbers, spreadsheets, etc.  With a Mac or
> |> NeXT, I could put all the parts of the document in one section of the
> |> screen, say the upper left corner.  Then I could also work on another
> |> document, say a lab report, with all the documents in the lower right
> |> corner.  Everything is organized by what I'm working on.  With MDI,
> |> however, everything is organized by what I'm working WITH.  That means
> |> that all the spreadsheets that are open are all in the lower left
> |> corner, all the text I'm working on is in the upper left, pictures are
> |> in the upper right etc.  I think this is a major obstacle to the
> |> object-oriented aspects of CUA 1991.  One of the major tenets of CUA
> |> 1991 is that people work with documents, stationary, templates etc, NOT
> |> with applications.  (For example, there is no quit option for CUA 1991
> |> apps, because you can't "quit" an object.  However, you can close that
> |> particular "view" of the object.)
> |> MDI makes people work by application, NOT document. Score one for MACs
> |> and -1 for IBM for breaking their own guidelines.
>  
> Well, I agree I just dont quite see how OS/2 does it. Incidentally,
> MacOS organizes documents into "layers", so that if you bring forward any
> one document in any app, all the other docs in that app come up
> behind it. So score 1/2 for the Mac.

OS/2 unfortunately is not that consistent.  Some apps have MDI, some,
like the Enhanced Editor which comes with OS/2 and is like Emacs, don't
use it.
If you have Describe open for example, then all Describe documents stay
in one window.  They can be minimized, maximized, resized, but
everything stays in the window.  Nothing can go out, nothing can come
in.  The same goes in Windows which also has MDI (that includes Word,
Excel, 123 for windows, AMI etc).
Yeah, I've seen the layers thing, and I like the "hide other windows
option," but I like the minimize option in windows/os2 better because it
provides a visual/graphical way of letting the user know what's in
memory.  With hiding windows, I tend to forget what's there, and I'll
eventually go back to Finder, open the folder where it was in, only to
find that it was already in memory.

> Perhaps you could describe how to make a new document, open an old one,
> launch an app (if this is meaningfull), etc...

Make a new document: drag an object off a template, or if you want,
there's the old way.  Run the app and then a new, untouched document is
waiting there for your disposal.  Opening an old one and launching apps
is just like in Finder.  You've got a folder for documents or whatever
and you dbl-click it.  It opens, and you pick the document and dbl-click
that.  The app opens and loads the document, just like the Mac. 
Launching an app, I've got my system configured like most of the Macs in
my clusters: I have an applications folder, broken into the following:
Communications, Word Processors/Editors, Graphics, Numbers (Math,
Spreadsheet etc).  Open these folders and you'll find the apps there, a
la Macintosh.  Deleting a doc works the same way, just drag the icon
into the trashcan, or shredder, or recycler, whatever you want to have
(there's a discussion on one of the OS/2 bboards on how to write a REXX
script to make a trashcan object to replace the shredder).
  
> |> > Lastly, how do the notebooks work in apps?
> |> 
> |> Here's how a basic notebook is setup.  You see the analog of a notebook
> |> folded in half (on some, even complete with the metal wire binding). 
> |> Along the side, just like a notebook, there are tabs.  The tabs let you
> |> select different options you can changes.  For example, to elaborate on
> |> the Country settings notebook discussed in some other section, the tabs
> |> along the side are named: Country, Time, Date, Numbers, and General. 
> |> The Country setting page lets you choose what country you're in, Time
> |> allows you specify the time format, Date, the date format, etc.  General
> |> is in all notebooks and is the page for the title of the app, and the
> |> Icon. 
>  
> I understand how notebooks work; I want to know how they connect
> to apps. Ar ethey one of the selections you can bring up with
> the right button?

I really don't know, not many apps out yet.  Notebooks will probably be
used for things like the autosave parameters, page formatting, margins,
etc.  If you look in the standard options pull-down menu, a notebook
will probably be a unified way to change all the options.
The right button will be something used only for objects.  It'll bring
up properties that can be changed.

> |> Anyway, stationary sounds a lot like a template, but a template isn't
> |> defined by the application-it's defined by the operating system.  All
> |> files have a checkbox for template in their settings notebook.  It gets
> |> kind of dangerous though, because you can define a .dll as a template. 
> |> Then, when you double click it, the system won't know what created it. 
> |> Of course, you're not "supposed" to do this, but you can, and so it's an
> |> error.
>  
> Bleah. Oh well, this could and should be fixed in a revision soon.
> (or so I presume.)

Not much of a problem, because not many people will define their own
templates.  Apps will do this for them.

> |>  However, apps which are CUA 1991 compliant should create a new
> |> template for its document types in the standard templates folder.  Ex:
> |> Upon install, Describe places a Describe document template in the
> |> folder.  Dragging from this will let you create a new document.
>  
> It soudns like installing an OS/2 app spews objects all over the place.

Not really, it only creates a standard template which goes into the
templates folder.
  
> |>  It
> |> should work the same way the "new" apps which haven't come yet.
> |> BTW, while I'm on templates, let me go into some of the advantages of
> |> templates over stationary.  Templates can also be used for things other
> |> than documents.  Ex: OS/2 comes with a template for printers.  To
> |> install a new printer, you drag a printer icon off the template, then a
> |> dialog box opens asking you to configure it (eg, stuff like the port,
> |> printer type etc) and up pops a new printer object on your desktop.
>  
> This doesn't sound as good as having printer files that come with
> yer printer; you drag the file from a floppy onto your hard drive
> and thats it. Or just drop things onto the floppy, or whatnot.
> The driver file contains the code to print; when osmething pritns
> to that printer (file), that code is loaded and used.
>  
> Of course, MAcs dont work this way. But they ALMOST do, and they SHOULD.

Oh, I should be more clear.  Currently, most PC printers don't come with
driver disks (although they should, just like a video card).  Drivers
come with the OS.  Right now, there's support for basically every
printer out there, even Apple printers.  When you drag a new printer
object, it will open its settings notebook and ask you for the type of
printer.  That will load up the appropriate driver.  If there is no
driver on the hard drive, it will prompt you to put in the printer
driver disk which is part of the os.  Then, you can set its properties,
like print quality:high, mid, low, landscape or portrait printing, the
type of paper used etc.
Another way to install a printer is to put the printer drivers disk in
the driver.  You can then pick out which printer is yours and then
configure it.
  
> |> This is also how you create new folders:  you drag a new folder off the
> |> folder template.
>  
> This doesnt' sound nearly as convinient as a new folder command. You have
> to dig thru folders to use this.

Yeah, that's why if you right-click on a folder or something, it'll have
an option, create.  That's a cascaded menu (brings up another menu) and
you can choose folder, and you get another folder.  

> |>  Also, if you want to create a new color pallette, you
> |> drag one of the color pallette template.
>  
> What is a "color palette" in this context?

With a Mac, to change system colors, you select what you want to change,
and then change the color right?  Well, because of drag/drop, OS/2 does
it differently.  A color palette in this context is a selection of
colors.  It's basically a window of circles of different colors, just
like an artist's palette.  Obviously, you can't have 256 or some
humongous number of colors out, so, OS/2's solution is to let you create
a lot of those palettes.  To change a color in OS/2, you just drag the
color off the palette, the cursor changes to a paintbrush, and onto what
ever part you want to change.  The same goes for fonts.  If you want to
change the fonts in the menu bar from Chicago to Times, then you drage
the Times font off a palette, the cursor changes to a pencil, and onto
the menu bar.  However, because OS/2 is object-oriented, each folder is
an individual object, each with it's own attributes.  For example, you
can have a folder with it's title bar font as Times, another with Crypt,
another with Chicago.  The Times one can be blue, the Crypt one black,
Chicago green.  BTW, fonts are ATM, so it can use Mac fonts, once
they're converted with some tiny util.  Or, you can even put a
background on the folder, like a picture.
  
> |> etc. 
>  
> Most definitely!
>  
> |> For a new program,
> |> there's a program template.
>  
> sounds like creating a new program file...
>  
> |> I don't think Macintosh has an analog to this do they?
>  
> Yeah, the program itself. In the Apple Desktop Interface (to be
> precise about it), if you double click a program it opens up with
> a new, empty document. This lets you have your consistent-make-new
> -object (file), but only use the known double-click action. This
> trick would work for some of these things (new program, new document,
> maybe new palette) but not others (new folder).
>  
> There's no precise analogy.

OS/2 does the same thing, but the preferred way to create a new document
is to drag one off the template.  OS/2 is only IBM's interim release on
its way to fully implement CUA 1991.  They have to keep the old way
there or else people will totally drop it.  In the ideal CUA 1991
situation, the user will NEVER EVER deal with the applications.  They'll
be there, but a user will always be working with their document, or
whatever.  That's a very important idea developed in CUA 1991.  The apps
will be hidden from the user, he'll never know what's there (okay, he
will, but he won't have to.)  They'll say, "Oh, I'm gonna go install
this new Word template into my system and see what it can do."  This is
the major philosophy of CUA 1991.  There are other things like the way
file dialog is setup, a bunch of other tech stuff, but this was what
they're research really came up with. (They did research to find out
what a better user interface would be, at least I'm told).

> |>  Templates are a
> |> more centralized idea;  1991 CUA took stationary and generalized them to
> |> include basically everything in the system.  Basically, whenever you
> |> want to make something new in OS/2 2.0, you drag it out of the template
> |> folder.  In a Mac, to make a new folder, you goto the menu bar, install
> |> a new printer, go to chooser, etc.  Right?
>  
> You get a new folder from the menu bar, yeah. You install a new printer
> by dragging it to the extensions folder (just drop it on the system
> foler and let the system deal with it);

The whole idea behind CUA 1991 was to unify everything, and to
generalize it all.  The desktop is simply a huge folder!  It can be
scrolled if an icon goes off screen for example.  Smaller folders are
consistant in that they too have all the options which the desktop has,
you can configure its background color, its font, etc.  Templates were a
way to unify creating anything new, from printers, color palettes,
documents, folders, everything.
Unfortunately, object-oriented means a slow-down in performance, at
least in this implementation.  That's because everytime you open a
folder for example, the system reads in stuff like background color,
title font, icon font, 3d shading color, etc.  In addition, it also
reads in the icons, the attributes of the icons, so on.  This means that
unless you have a 16 meg system, a fast video card, and at least a
386/40, you won't get the same responsiveness as a Mac IIsi simply
because opening a folder on a Mac consists of reading in what icons are
in the folder.  Colors are all the same, fonts are the same.  Those can
be taken from a central area.  Not so in OS/2.
I choose to have an oop system in exchange for a minor penalty in
performance.  Besides, the performance penalty is only when first
reading the object, if you "hide" the object (close the folder view of
the object, but keep it in memory) then it's just as fast as a Mac. 
Also, I've got 8 megs of ram, so it's not much of a problem.

Carl Jabido
cj00@andrew.cmu.edu

This was a nice way to spend a weekend, talking to a Mac user, imagine
that, talking, not flaming a Mac user.  BTW, I went to the Mac cluster
today, for the first time this semester.  I still don't like the 640x480
graphics.  I say, go for 1024x768, or even better, 1280x1024!!!!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy