On 2002-01-29 4:08 PM, "Allen Watson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On or near 1/29/02 7:50 AM, Harry Zink at [EMAIL PROTECTED] observed: > >>> Of course. The other Office apps access Entourage's Address Book. >>> "Entourage's Address Book" actually means "the Address Book of the current >>> identity" since each identity has its own Address Book. Get it? >> >> Yep, thanks for a very good insight into the mechanics behind this question. >> Much preferred to 'C'est la vie'. >> > And, playing devil's advocate to Paul for once, as a programmer I have to > agree that even with Word using the Address Book, switching identities > <could> be possible without closing Word. Entourage could, for instance, > post an inter-process message to Word, telling it that the Address book is > closing down, much in the way that FileMaker does with shared databases > between machines. It could get messy, though. For instance, do you give > Entourage the right to just take the AB away from Word, and replace with the > one from the new identity? (Imagine how many people would get surprised by > that one!) Or, do you require switching into Word to confirm the switch? > (Yuk.) Or, perhaps, do you alert the user in Entourage that he is switching > files on other Office apps, and is that okay? Seems like in most cases that > would be a workable solution, but what if Word was in the middle of a data > merge at the time? (Unlikely overall, but virtually certain to happen some > time.) > > So, all things considered, simply instructing the user to quit other Office > apps before the switch seems fairly clean by comparison. Why not allow the user to switch identities from any Office app? Since applications can "talk to" each other, when the user asks to switch identities, the application handling the request would simply "ask" the other running Office apps if "now" would be a good time to switch. If not, the user is alerted to the objection (and which app objected). If the switch is acceptable to all Office apps, the switch is made, and everything proceeds normally. Not that this is necessarily a simple change, but from a design point of view, I think it would work. Enjoy! -- Jim -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
