Re: Shared application menu

[Banlu Kemiyatorn]

Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf wrote:

> As for NSToolBar:
>
> This is a per window thing, that means an application may sport different 
> kind of windows of which each kind can have it's personal toolbar. (An 
> example that comes to my mind is Camino which has different toolbars for 
> it's browser and download windows).
>  
I know that it is a per window thing but we cannot focus 2 windows (or 
can we?). My idea
was changing the top screen tool bar everytime a window is focused. 
Leaving it in blank
if that window doesn't have a tool bar. (The status bar items always be 
shown on the right side)


> A toolbar on the top of the screen implies global validity of the toolbar 
> items. Since it is done different from that in Mac OS X it would create 
> another hurdle for porting applications.
From the current usage of NSToolBar in MacOSX, what is the example of 
hurdle that
would be possible according to my approach? The only problem I can see 
is that you
can't click the tool bar item if you didn't focus the window first. Thus 
I think that's a
counter-intuitive feature.

> Btw. you might think it is done like you propose in MS Windows for 
> instance. That is only half way true: Even MS Word and MS Excel differ in 
> the way they handle this. MS Word has a toolbar at the top of each window 
> like in Mac OS X but MS Excel has a master window with a toolbar that 
> contains the document windows. Such an inconsistency is worse than any 
> other consistent way to do this. MS Windows should not be a role model for user interfaces (like for KDE or GNOME).
>  
I have no idea about Windows interface since I never use it. Is that 
related to the per-window
issue mentioned above?

> > 4) the edge of screen should be used to
> > increase productivity in a way. 
> >    
>
> This works only if the buttons etc. really reach to the edge of the screen 
> and are not - like it is done in the MS Windows taskbar - one or two 
> pixels away from it. I think MS did this because it looks better this way 
> - and it really does. Having some buttons sitting at the very top of the 
> screen would look really clumpsy IMHO. And as you can tell from many 
> requests and a lot of different projects on the web not only the feel but 
> also the look is important to most users.
>  
Hmmm. Then why putting an icon of NSToolBar 2 pixels away from the edge 
of the screen?
And why make it looks like a button? Can't it just looks like status 
item or the apple logo
on OSX?