Re: NSToolbar

[Uli Kusterer]

In article <mailman.564.1074031069.928.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
 Alex Perez <aperez@student.santarosa.edu> wrote:

> On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Uli Kusterer wrote:
> > 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.

It has been done for singular windows in various applications. Netscape 
Communicator also had it with that little area that contained icons for 
Composer, Navigator, Mail etc.

However, I'd like to see an OS follow through on that idea and allow 
this for the various areas of *any* window. Of course, developers would 
have to somehow mark the various areas of their windows so the user 
doesn't accidentally rip two things that really belong together apart, 
but it would allow much more flexibility.

As a start, think about NSDrawer. If it was possible to tear off any 
drawer from its application window, or to take any two windows in an 
application and attach one to the other as a drawer. At least for the 
ones belonging to the same document, this would already be a quite 
powerful feature.

Similarly, it could probably be done with NSSplitView.

Just a thought,
-- Uli
"where oh where has my server gone..."