Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald From: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Hey Apple Mac engineers, answer->Ma Message-ID: <46100321@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 11 Aug 89 17:28:00 GMT References: <14845@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> Lines: 33 Nf-ID: #R:dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU:14845:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:46100321:000:1621 Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdonald Aug 11 12:28:00 1989 >In article <21857@dcatla.UUCP> mclek@sunb.UUCP (Larry E. Kollar) writes: ... >>I don't know about PM, but I use Macs and Amigas both quite a bit. I can >>tell the difference (I'm a tech writer, not a programmer): >> >> - The Mac dialog boxes lock out *all* user input to tasks or windows >> other than the dialog box itself. What if I want to pull up the >> on-line documentation to help me decide what to set in the dialog? >> This is a BIG malfeature of Multifinder. > This not a fault of the Mac, but of the programmer who programmed >the dialog. Mac dialogs can be set up to be totally modal, as you >describe, or to be modeless, i.e. just like any other window. It is >more work for the programmer to write programs which use modeless >dialogs, not much more work, but a little more. It is modal dialogs, >not dialogs per se, which lock you out under MultiFinder, and 99% of >the time, you have some lazy application programmer to thank for it. It is a fault of the operating system. In a true multitasking system, it is IMPOSSIBLE for one program to lock up the system, whether intentionally or because of a bug. Incidentally, I was using a Mac recently do some scanning (soon to appear as a lovely posting in sci.astro (advertisement)). It was running multifinder. The watch icon kept appearing and there was no way to stop it except the power switch. Is there a generic way on a Mac II running Multifinder to stop a program or switch programs while the watch icon is present? This is an ABSOLUTE requirement of a multitasking system. My PC under Desqview can easily do it. Doug McDonald