Part of the DaveNet Mail website. San Francisco CA USA. 11/11/96.

Let's Have Fun -- Now! RE: THE ARROGANCE OF THE MAC

Sent:11/11/96; 5:07:24 PM
From: Paul_J_Chernoff@enteractive.com (Paul J Chernoff)

I felt that I had to reply to today's article, since I think I have something to contribute.

Outliners are becoming more prevelant in all sorts of software. One of the big improvements in Lotus NOTES with version 4 (this is not intended to be a recommendation for NOTES) is the inclusion of outlining tools that don't require coding. In version 3 you had to do coding which showed '+' and '-' as in ThinkTank. Now you get wedges without any programming, which is pretty neat if you like Notes.

But NOTES databases aren't outlines. I consider outlines to be very flexible, as opposed to different types of data being assigned to different levels of the outline. But it retains the advantage of hiding details.

>>I think the vertical split in each Windows outline, where the elements of a "directory" are displayed in another window pane, is a dead-end. Unfortunately all Windows software seems to have gone down that road.

I agree. My problem with this approach is that it assumes the user has a large monitor and is devoting the entire window to the screen. NOTES has adopted this approach because it is the Windows way of doing things. In addition, part of this design is to show the contents of an "element" in a 3rd pane which extends across the bottom of the screen. However, Lotus made it very easy to hid the "contents" pane.

Me, I see advantages to the MS approach but I still prefer yours. Perhaps the best approach is to leave it up to the user. The outline structure is the same no matter how you display it so why not have switches for:

1) display elements in outline pane 2) display contents in outline pane 3) show/hide elements pane 4) show/hide content pane

And perhaps have double-clicking opening up contents in a new window e.g. double-click on an outline item and its elements will be shown in a new window or double-click on an element and its contents will be shown in a new window.

--Paul Chernoff

Let's Have Fun -- Now!

This page was last built on Sat, Dec 14, 1996 at 8:02:29 AM. The messages in this site are responses to DaveNet essays.