Re: Scrollbar morphems?

[Randall.Smith@Eng.Sun.COM (Randy Smith)]

Nice!  I agree with almost everything.

The qualifier "almost" is the small observation that when you edit and
get the green red buttons popping up, at least you do have their
presence there as a sign that the text does not match the underlying
reality.

However, I am sympathetic with the color blind point, and the general
desire to avoid these "counterfactual"(word we use in the group)
situations.

	--Randy

> 
> Do this:
> 
>   - go to the object you want to scroll
>   - choose "Move to Own Window" in the blue menu
>   - resize the new window so some background can be seen and go there
>   - choose "radar view" from the yellow menu
>   - resize the window to show just the amount you wanted
>   - scroll
> 
> What could be easier? :-) Ok... so it looks strange...
> 
> Also, if you resize a text editor ( try an evaluator, for example )
> you get tiny scrollbars, right? So the code must be already there -
> just browse until you find it.
> 
> As for me: DON'T SCROLL ME IN!
> 
> I like to think, as Mr. Spock would say: "There are always alternatives."
> 
> I found dragging with the hand tool in Macpaint pretty nifty and even
> intuitive. And how about a look at PARC's "perspective wall" on page
> 281 of the February 1991 Byte to get the imagination going?
> 
> My favorite idea is to use lenses, so that the whole object is
> visible somewhere in the virtual screen. I really hate hidden
> stuff ( don't even get me started on CUT/COPY/PASTE :-)
> 
> Xerox is working on lenses too. In fact, they are patenting them -
> the meanies! I can't say that I blame them after what happened with
> Apple, but I don't like the idea of having to do things differently
> just to avoid paying royalties rather than because they are a better
> alternative :-(
> 
> See http://www.parc.xerox.com/PARC/istl/gir/mli.html for more details.
> 
> While I am in the mood - I have two objections about the accept/cancel
> buttons. I found them very pretty, in fact, but they would cause
> problems for people who are color blind - this is something that
> should be considered if it is intended to be used by a large audience.
> 
> The other problem is that after you edited a method and before you
> accepted it ( or canceled ) the on screen image is inconsistent with
> what the object is really like. An alternative that I had considered
> was that the system would give you a clone of the method source that
> you could edit at your leisure. To update the original method, you
> would drag-and-drop the text on the slot. The problem with this is
> that it is much less convenient and also very dangerous - you might
> drop the text on the wrong method by mistake!
> 
> That is all, for now.
> -- Jecel
>