Asa Dotzler wrote:
>
> Henri Sivonen wrote:
> >
> > Even Microsoft hasn't combined IE and OE in the same app although
> > those apps share some back end libraries.
>...
> Um, this is what we're doing too. We have some libraries which can be
> used to build things, a Web browser or a mail client or an HTML editor
> or a IRC chat client. We have several products which call the
> functionality
*PING!*
> of those libraries.
>...
Unfortunately, that is not the case.
If you run Internet Explorer and Outlook Express at the same time,
`Internet Explorer' and `Outlook Express' will appear in the application
menu -- you can switch between them by selecting them from the menu, or
by typing Command+Tab. But if you run Mozilla Navigator and Mozilla
Messenger at the same time, only `Mozilla' will appear in the
application menu. (You still get `Mozilla' in the application menu if
you're using an XP Toolkit app which is not even part of the Mozilla
suite, e.g. Aphrodite or Chameleon.)
The other symptom is even worse. If you run Internet Explorer and
Outlook Express at the same time, then crash Outlook Express, Internet
Explorer will (most of the time) remain standing. But if you run Mozilla
Navigator and Mozilla Messenger at the same time, then crash Mozilla
Messenger, Mozilla Navigator will crash too. All the benefits of a
crash-proof OS are negated, because one XP Toolkit app can bring down
all the others.
>...
> IE for windows doesn't use the native win32 UI and end users seem to
> be fine with it, at least I haven't heard a frenzy of complainta about
> its non-native UI.
>...
That's for two reasons. Firstly, Windows users are much more used to
inconsistency in UI controls than Mac users are. So the slight
differences between the Internet Explorer form controls and native UI
controls (such as the differences in text selection behavior, for
example) don't matter as much on Windows as they would on Mac OS.
Secondly, the Internet Explorer programmers did a much, much better job
of imitating native controls than the Mozilla programmers have done so
far (yada Mozilla yada incomplete yada yada). The differences between
native Windows controls and Internet Explorer form controls are much
fewer than those between native {insert your platform here} controls and
XP Toolkit controls.
--
Matthew `mpt' Thomas, Mozilla user interface QA
