Re: Now on Leopard

"Daniel Johnson" <danieljohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> stated in post
13ivbfvmj0ugg51@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on 11/5/07 4:57 PM:

Er, doesn't this just mean you left click instead of right clicking to
expand the stack? Or am I missing something?

You can drag files to folders on the dock... sort of like how you can drag
items to "tasks" on the taskbar.

Oh! And it opens when you do this, then? I thought you just dropped stuff on
the little pile of icons in the dock!

You can do that as well. Here is what else you can do:

<http://tmp.gallopinginsanity.com/spring.mov>

Ah, that makes it crystal clear! It's not the stack that is spring loaded
exactly, but the folder. And not just folders,

Correct.

I pressed the space bar to open the items... HA! When will Windows ever get
anything like that - just imagine how useful it would be in Windows if you
could drag a file to a minimized window and have the window open so you could
drag stuff to it. I bet MS adds that to Windows real quick! :)

:D

I seem to recall being instructed as to how broken that behavior is, when
Windows does it. :D

Where Windows is broken is you cannot just drag a file to the icon... say to
send an email.

Though it is a little different in Windows: it opens when you hover over the
taskbar button. Think of it as the befuddlement metaphor: you are sitting
there, not knowing what to do, frozen in cyber-terror, so it helps you out. :D

On Leopard it will even launch an app - even if it makes no sense to do so.
:)

On the Mac you can do it with any folder or application (even if it makes no
sense for it to do anything) and any minimized window.

If the application is not running, is it launched so it can 'spring'?

Yes. Though for springing you need to hit the space bar.

[snip]
That is to say, what you get is the *actual* EXCEL.EXE, WINWORD.EXE, or
POWERPNT.EXE. It runs as its own process, but appears embedded inside
Explorer. That's something you can't do on OS X.

What if you do not have MS Office? On a Mac you can still preview the files
in the Finder.

Are you trying to suggest that there are computers that don't have MS Office
installed? That's unthinkable!

Many do not... many come with the oxymoronicly names MS Works. :)

More seriously, if MS baked special support for Office into Windows, they'd
catch hell for it. What they should do is provide special built in viewers for
iWork. :D

I do not believe Apple has that. :)


The UI is cut down to fit that little pane, but you still get the goofy blue
scrollbars, and you can make selections and copy data out. Can you copy data
out of a QuickLook preview?

Absolutely... with a screen shot saved to the clipboard. :)

:D

Hey, I could have just said yes and left it at that.

Of course the real advantage of this technology is better compatibility- you
aren't using a lightweight viewer but the real app, so whatever the real app
can read, you can preview.

And all thanks to the registry! :D

Ick. But not needed - OS X also does things based on file extension

Well, so does Windows. But the registry can handle the *other end* of the
connection with much more flexibility: instead of just running Excel, it uses
it as a COM server and instantiates objects inside it.

OTOH, even with the registry I don't think Quartz supports this kind of
embedding. Each application's windows are controlled by one process in one
thread; this 'two applications stuffed into one window' thing is Right Out.

Apple used to do that with OpenDoc.

--
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
--Aldous Huxley

.

Loading