feakbeak said:
Your comments seems to be mostly caused by "Windows hate".
I don't think that my like or dislike of Windows had anything to do with this issue in Windows.
If it would make you happier, we could compare Windows with some other operating system other than Mac OS X so that the stark contrast is better seen.
How about SGI's IRIX?
Lets look at an application that exist in both IRIX and Windows... Photoshop.
In Windows, Photoshop is a rooted application. That is, there is a root application window in which the other windows are displayed. If you resize that root window, you lose the view of the other windows.
In IRIX, every window is it's own Window. I can see other applications running in the background while working on an image which is intended for placement in some other application's document.
The thing is, both the IRIX and Windows versions of Photoshop were ported at the same time. The reason Adobe made Photoshop a rooted app for Windows while leaving it a rootless app for IRIX (like the original Mac version) was a limitation of the Windows application environment.
I use quite a few operating systems (Mac OS X, Mac OS, Rhapsody, OPENSTEP and IRIX) and they all share one important feature... rootless applications.
I've always been able to easily use multiple applications within Windows. On average I usually run 4-6 apps at a time whether I am on Windows or OS X and I don't really think there is that big a difference in multitasking on either of them.
Do you drag-n-drop in Windows?
I drag-n-drop elements between Mac OS X apps constantly. While working on a page layout in Create or web layout in GoLive, I'll often drag-n-drop images from Curator into those documents. I drag-n-drop selection of text from Mail to TextEdit or Create. I drag-n-drop documents from the desktop into documents in Create, TextEdit, Mail, etc. all the time.
Do you do that in Windows? Rooted applications that takeover the screen hide the desktop and other applications from the user.
You may think you are multitasking, but are you really getting the most from multitasking on Windows?
Throw services into the mix and you have a ton of application interoperability in Mac OS Xthat just isn't there on Windows.
But, if you like to stick to one task at a time, Windows is perfect.
I think it's a bit extreme to say that Windows assumes its users cannot do more than one task at a time. Couldn't a counter-argument be made that OS X assumes that users are so forgetful that they wouldn't know an application was open unless they saw the window(s) for it open at all times? Both of those arguments are illogical.
Do you have a good argument for why, even after all these years, Windows still forces developers into a rooted application mode?
Plus you can close the last document window in most Mac apps and the application is still running ready for you to pick another application. Your argument about needing to see windows open is more fitting for the Windows environment than the Mac. Most Windows app quit if you close the last document window... assuming you have nothing else you that you would want to do with that app.
And it is not extreme... it is sad, but true.
I supported Windows from 1997 to 2002, and most of the Windows users I came across couldn't handle not having full screen mode.
In one case, I was able to get an office manager a 19" screen for her Windows NT 4 system. I set it up in the middle of the night for her, and it worked great!
The next day I got a call... there was something wrong with the new screen. I rushed down there to find that what was wrong was that her main application would no longer go full screen at the resolution the monitor was at. She couldn't work without it being full screen. I ended up setting the resolution to 800x600 it would be full screen for her. You could read the text on her monitor across the room.
I'm not being extreme at all. This is a real thing that Windows users go through (as seen by the starter of this very thread).
You're entitled to your opinions, but I don't think it's fair to say that Windows assumes its users are stupid and they cannot do more than one thing at a time.
I never said
stupid any more than I said I hate Windows.
If you would like to explore this further, I would appreciate you not attributing comments to me that I never made.
That should be considered good forum etiquette for all of us to follow... don't you think?
And just so you know that my IRIX example was accurate, I've attached a screen shot of Photoshop running with Illustrator on my SGI Indy.