Stephen Donner's Weblog

You know, maybe if you spent more time working and less reviewing books you're reading in all your spare time, Mozilla could have been successful. Just a thought.

And what have you done for the Mozilla project Troll, I mean Paul?

Stephen, thanx for all your work and talkback stack traces =)

I can only second what Adam said. Thank you.

Question -- The book of Mozilla. Who decides the entries, are they just de-facto community agreements?

3:31 corresponds to 3/31/98, which all of us know. 7:15 is 7/15/03 =-(

What happened to make the entry for 12:10?

Also, on talkback, does Mozilla finally get access? I think someone was working on letting us see the stacks... so do you know what happens now?

Thanks,
Owen

For example, if you see an AIM window peeking out from behind your browser and you click on it, that window will come to the front, but the main application window will not. The Mail.app/Activity Viewer is another example. The Aqua system of layers works well in many instances, but not in all. Thank goodness that the Dock is always there to come to the rescue. I know that clicking on an application icon in the Dock will always result in not only the application coming to the front, but also any non-minimized windows associated with it. And if the application is active but no windows are open, clicking on the Dock icon should create a new window in that application.

Adhere to System Appearance. Does your application use all the sweetly colored buttons, delightfully shaded windows, and all the other "bells and whistles?"

User Assistance. This is helping the user with the proper "next step" when performing a task. Less guesswork for the user on what to do next makes for a better experience.

You Must Promise. To call your mother, to help old ladies cross the road, and to turn your cell phone off at the movies.

Drawers. Similar to Sheets, this is a "child" window that gives users access to items that do not always need to be present. But when do you use a drawer and when do you use a palette?

In building your amazing Aqua application, one of the most important things to consider is the Dock. There are three things your app needs to be "Dock Compliant." Now, I write this knowing that the Dock will be going through some major changes soon, but for the most part, these should still hold true.

The simple fact is that, when all other factors are equal, where will consumers spend their money? I believe that in the long run, the best looking, easiest-to-use applications will also be the most successful. I think that's why Apple encourages developers to write programs that are 100 percent Aqua-compliant.

Adhere to System Appearance. Does your application use all the sweetly colored buttons, delightfully shaded windows, and all the other "bells and whistles?"

Okay, I just told you what Apple wants you to look out for with window positions, but in the real world, not everyone uses the hiding feature of the Dock, and it is unrealistic to be able to predict where each user will place their Dock at any given day or how large they will have it. However, you can build a feature into your application that allows spacing for the Finder. You can give users the option of where to position their windows and what area of the screen not to cross. I know that BBEdit provides me with this feature, and I wish more developers gave me more control over my windows.