Re: "Close" on last window causes "exit"

Paul Rohr (paul@abisource.com)
Thu, 06 May 1999 11:11:21 -0700


At 10:31 AM 5/6/99 -0700, Darren O. Benham wrote:
>I'm not sure I'd agree with this... Using my mother as an example, she's
>been using computers for a number of years but she can't do anything fancy.
>She has trouble doing formulas in excel and it's pretty much a glorified
>calculator to her. She's worked as a secretary for a number of years and a
>sales manager for a few more before opening her own business in automotive
>repair. She's used to SDI interface, true... but where open opens a file
>in the current application (saving/closing if necessary, an already loaded
>document) and where close will save/close the currently loaded document and
>then leave the word processor in a "new document" state.
>
>...
>
>Not really.. EXIT means exit. CLOSE means close. Windows users see "exit"
>to terminate the application... Based on people I've talked to and word
>processors I've worked with (MDI AND SDI) I'd say Brian's idea is more
>intuitive to someone who's new to computers, period.

Great. Your mom is *exactly* the person we want to not surprise. (My Mom's
actually too comfortable with software to be this good a tester.)

Remember that we've got a weird hybrid interface that's not pure SDI. In a
pure SDI app like you describe, you can only have one document open at a
time. Every attempt to open another closes the one you're in. In this
case, having close map onto "leave me up with an empty doc" makes some
sense. You're very conscious that you're staying in the app, since that
top-level window is the only one you ever see. Pure SDI interfaces are just
as application-centric as MDI ones, just not as complex.

By contrast, we've got a document-centric browser-like "Multiple SDI"
interface which allows you to simultaneously work with multiple documents.
It tends to favor simultaneous use of multiple documents, and presumes that
selecting and launching documents from your desktop is fairly easy. As you
and Brian rightly point out, the one place this UI choice is weakest is for
serial use -- immediately editing one document followed by another.

If it weren't for web browsers, explaining the MSDI paradigm to your Mom
would be hard, and we'd be stuck in a pure SDI vs. pure MDI debate. :-) I
continue to believe that anyone who's spent any time working with Netscape
or IE is unlikely to be too surprised by our behavior, since we're very
deliberately mimicing them.

Paul



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