Re: NSToolbar

[Alex Perez]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Uli Kusterer wrote:

> 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.

It's already been done :) Microsoft Office Suite Appliactions (Word, 
Excel, etc, and many other portions of  Windows) have for a long time 
allowed you to "tear off" the toolbar and use it as a separate window. 
You can also make the toolbar "attach" to any side of the window.