Panther Cocoa
Dan Wood relays that Cocoa will be getting some functionality from EOF that will make much of today’s hand-written controller code unnecessary. Good Apple.
Wood also notes that, in Panther, Watson’s toolbars will show the currently selected tool. I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it makes Watson’s toolbar clearer. On the other, it’s a reminder of how many different things people use toolbars for. In Watson and System Preferences, they’re like a set of favorite tabs with icons. In Mail’s preferences there are no favorites; the toolbar shows all of the “tabs,” and they are not reorderable. In the Finder, there are verbs on the toolbar (Burn, Get Info) as well as verb-noun hybrids like folders. A folder icon in a Finder toolbar is a destination for drags, and also a command for showing that folder’s contents in the window. Should the Finder highlight the toolbar icon of the currently visible folder? That would mean highlighting and unhighlighting icons as you navigate within the window. And it would look rather strange if you don’t have the folder icons grouped together in the toolbar. Apple’s guidelines really need to address these issues.
Oh, and here’s a link for whoever maintains the ADC Web site. Bad Apple.
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Apple has been disregarding their own Interface Guidlines for quite some time. I really wish they would follow their own guidelines...
