Re: Unimplemented AppKit classes

[Tobias]

> Not in a NeXT-style GUI -- one of perhaps three (and
> neither GNOME nor KDE are on that short list) GUI environments built on
> *nix principles.
i dont like kde and gnome either that much.
but they do some things right.

> For an application where a Mac or Windows developer would use a toolbar, a
> NeXT developer would use one or more floating panels for most efficient
> use of screen space. That's why panels order our when their app becomes
> inactive -- to avoid unnecessary clutter. The NeXT GUI is designed to use
> a big screen efficiently: the bigger the screen, the more useful it is.
i got your point. 
i didn't thought about it.
but we could nevertheless implement this api... better than apple did.
as pointed before, we could offer a way to 
and let the user decide, whether he wants these toolbars as seperate floating 
panels

>
> What are the other two? NeWS and (to a much lesser extent) OpenWindows
> (which eventually became Open Look).
>
> > huh?
> > you dont like the toolbar in mail.app, projectbuilder.app... and most
> > other NeXT-apps you dont have to, but there was a toolbar even in good
> > old next apps.
>
> No, there wasn't. ProjectBuilder did not have a toolbar -- it had a small
> group of icons as part of its interface. 
i thought this was kind of a toolbar, e.g.: afaik projectbuilder on macosx 
implements those icons as a toolbar.

btw: 
the main feature of toolbars are not its (arguable) look, but its ability to 
customize it easily.


> > we are gnusteppers, thus we may find a better solution.
>
> The better solution is good UI design.
and this may include above approach.

> That's what status items are for -- to show
> application or system-service status, or to provide interactivity when
> another program is being run. That they can be (ab)used to do other things
> is not Apple's problem.
i see your point.
but some great things can be done with status items, that have nothing to do 
with status.
nevertheless i think you are right, and we have to abandon this idea anyway 
due to a lack of a central menubar.


~ibotty