On Sun, 16 Feb 2003 17:12:54 +0000
Axel Simon
Oh no, the point should be: If you use the Common API you will (automatically) get applications which have a native look-and-feel.
I think there is a more tecnical aspect to discuss and that perhaps could be added to the summary if people agree. Macos X has a notion of "application" and one of "document", and when one closes the last window of an application, the application is still running. On windows, OTOH, it's (at least it was) common pratice not to open a second instance of an application, but a new document instead, for every run of the program. On linux, there is the well known behaviour of creating a new unix process, and a new instance of the application, for every execution of the program. This behaviour is however abandoned by gnome, kde and mozilla I guess, so it could have been a mistake; this could be argumented by observing that emacs itself has a client-server option. Maybe having separate instances is just easier on unix (avoiding the plethora of servers that are started in kde and gnome, for example, which sometimes don't work and don't let you create new applications. Yes, with this consideration I am voting for separate processes). The real problem is that linux does not have (if it ever has only two looks) a native feel, so one should be chosen before we start working. To get back on what I was talking about, if we want the common API to achieve real look and feel, we ought to have an "application" abstraction, wich is different from the "window" one. So an application could behave really different in any OS. On OSX, the menus of the documents of the same application will have to be in a submenu of the main menu for the application, and items like "exit" wich are not in the file menu (at least, I think I have heard so :)) need to be part of the "application" abstraction, as do the common items wich are found in the "help" menu. Vincenzo -- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. [Gandhi]