Re: [Usability]Keeping the Quit menu item

[Breda McColgan <breda mccolgan sun com>]

Havoc Pennington wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If we were really application-based as on the mac, when I clicked the
> word processor menu item the second time, it would simply focus the
> existing application, not open a new window. But GNOME doesn't even
> *support* "focusing an application."
> 
> <snip>


I agree that it may be more desirable to focus an already-running
instance of an application rather than start a new instance. I also
agree that this should be the default behavior. However, I would like to
be able to override this default behavior at my own discretion.


Example 1: Adobe Acrobat Reader (AAR) on Microsoft Windows NT
=============================================================

AAR behaves in the way that you recommend. 

If I have already opened a document using AAR:
- Double-clicking on a PDF file in Explorer will
  open that document in the existing AAR instance.
- Explicitly starting the AAR application again will
  move focus to the existing AAR instance.

As far as I am aware, it is not possible to run more than one instance
of AAR. To search for a particular term in several PDF documents,
I must search each document sequentially in the single AAR instance, 
rather than search each document in parallel. This is very
time-consuming and frustrating. 


Example 2: Adobe FrameMaker (AFM) on Microsoft Windows NT
=========================================================

AFM partially behaves in the way that you recommend, but allows you to
override the default behavior.

If I have already opened a document using AFM:
- Double-clicking on an AFM file in Explorer will
  open that document in the existing AFM instance.
- Explicitly starting the AFM application again will
  open a new AFM instance.

In general, I am happy to use a single AFM instance to edit several
documents, as I can easily switch from one document to another. However,
when building a book, AFM "freezes" -- I cannot edit another document
until the build has complete. If the book is large and contains many
complex images, the build process may take an hour. When trying to build
several books in time to meet a release deadline (and implement those
last-minute comments that always seem to crop up!), every minute is
valuable, and an hour is a very long period of enforced idleness.
Fortunately, this is not a problem when using AFM, as I can start a
second AFM instance to edit other documents while building a book in the
first instance. In fact, I can open an AFM instance for each document,
and build all documents simultaneously. This is very handy.


I realise that my examples refer to applications that were not developed
specifically for the GNOME desktop, and these applications may work
differently on non-Windows operating systems, but they illustrate my
point. I am not familiar with every single GNOME application, but
perhaps the same principle applies to at least some of them?


Regards,
Breda.