Re: NSToolbar

[Uli Kusterer]

In article <mailman.479.1073948872.928.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
 Philippe C.D. Robert <philippe.robert@gmx.net> wrote:

> No, please, this is IMHO a really bad proposal, a toolbar is what its 
> name implies and belongs to its window. If you do not like this UI 
> element, then just do not use it, but please do not try to make 
> something different out of it just because of personal taste. And as 
> you know - sorry for repeating myself - toolbars were and always have 
> been part of the NEXTSTEP UI, just not in the form of NSToolbars, so 
> there is no reason to reject the principle of a toolbar!
> 
> Besides the screen pollution is no argument against NSToolbars as you 
> can easily hide them completely whenever you want to, at least on Mac 
> OS X.

What I'd personally like to see in *any* OS is the concept of "dockable" 
windows, which could be extended to allow for toolbars as well.

In short, the general idea is that the various "panes" of a window can 
be "ripped out" and turned into separate windows, or several such 
windows can be re-assembled back together. Sort of like "tear-off menus" 
back in HyperCard.

Of course, to the application programmers, all of this would look like 
one honkin' big window (which is way easier to manage for them), while 
the user would have similar flexibility as Photoshop offers with its 
palette windows.

BTW -- this could also include NSDrawers. An NSDrawer would simply be 
another pane which can be collapsed/uncollapsed or torn off.

Of course, if I ever find the time to make another attempt at getting 
GNUstep installed on my Mac, you'll probably tell me to just implement 
that and contribute the code... :-)

Cheers,
-- M. Uli Kusterer
http://www.zathras.de