On 24 May 2004, at 05:29 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
If Photoshop's pallettes are not dockable, then I'd find it a user- hostile environment to work in.
I don't know if you are able to dock the palettes in Photoshop -- but if so, I've never seen a Windows user do that.
I agree that there should be the option to make the palette a toolbar in MacFin, but I don't know if I'd actually use it -- I've removed the useless tools (hand, magnifying glass, ossia, hyperscribe) from my Finale palette and have it arranged in two horizontal rows in the bottom-left corner of the screen, just above and to the left of the scroll bars. . .
You've converted it into a toolbar, then, just not docked.
I think the difference is that, because of the way I have the palette arranged, I still have quite a lot of active screen space to the left of it. If it were a true toolbar, I'd lose all of that, right?
Actually, back in the days before Finale had dockable toolbars, the real annoyance was that the pallettes stayed in the same place in scroll and page view. If Finale had been smartly designed, it would have had independent positioning for the two views, since the aspect ratio of the two data display areas is completely different. If that had been implemented, so I could have had my pallettes at the bottom in scroll view, and automatically go to the right side of the page in page view, I wouldn't have found them annoying. It was the pallettes' ignorance of the view I was in that made them annoying.
Hmmm. That might be nice, too, although bottom left keeps them mostly out of the way in both scroll and page view.
Isn't it possible to make the tools menu a floating palette in FinWin?
Not sure what you mean -- the actual tools menu turned into a floating pallette? What good is that, as it replicates all the existing toolbars?
Sorry, this was a terminology problem. I think what I meant to say, in Windows-ese, is "Isn't it possible to undock the toolbars in Finale?" In other words, can't you do what I do in FinMac, with a floating palette in the bottom left corner?
If so, surely those who prefer it that way could benefit from transparency, just as Mac users could. And, as I already mentioned, there are the big plugin windows like Staff List Manager.
Sorry, I don't get what you're interested in here, as I always thought the Tools menu was there for use by macro recorders.
I didn't mean to bring up the Tools menu. I meant the Tools palette.
And the point of that last sentence was, even with a docked Tools palette, there are several plugin dialogs (like TGTools Staff List Manger) that would benefit enormously from transparency.
I don't know what the default colors are, as I long ago changed mine to be what I prefer.
Bright primary colors, with an emphasis on red and green.
Well, floating pallettes are anethema, as far as I'm concerned. I don't have any applications that don't allow them to be treated as dockable toolbars, and that's the only way I like to use them.
But there are lots of standard Windows apps (like, say, Photoshop) that require floating palettes.
"Require?"
In the sense of, "I don't think you can dock them." All I know is, I've never seen them docked. Maybe a Windows Photoshop user could weigh in.
But it's definitely an idea that is not fundamental. It is at a level that is surface only, and this fits with my thesis that the only things MS is really copying from OS X are entirely at the surface level (and those only incompletely realized), not in anything truly significant from the point of view of OS functionality or UI.
That's between you and Philip. I don't have a dog in that fight. I just wanted to stand up for transparency as a potentially useful UI enhancement.
- Darcy
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