Subject: Re: POW user suggestion
From: Nils Barth (nils_barth@post.harvard.edu)
Date: Sun Aug 19 2001 - 00:15:57 CDT
The 640kB question (re: File->Close) is:
Will people using AbiWord assume that it behaves like MS Office (i.e.,
you can close all the documents but the program stays open), or will
they assume it behaves like IE or Netscape (i.e., if you close all
windows, the program is closed).
People might expect AW to act like MS Office because they're both word
processors/office apps; alternatively, they might expect it to act
like IE/Netscape because they both have one window for each document.
I'm inclined to think the latter, but we'd need user testing to figure
this out.
However, regardless of people's -initial- expectation, I think that
AW's behaviour is easily learnable:
`I just closed my last document -- where's Abiword?
Oh, it went away, like Netscape.'
(unconsciously, perhaps)
This is because AW (and SDI in general) has a simple mental model:
one window, one document.
One of the big problems with the MDI is that it has a complicated
mental model (one main window, corresponding to the application, with
many subwindows, corresponding to the documents, unless you maximize
one of the documents in which case the title bars get kinda confused),
and is hard to internalize.
I agree that for some purposes (web browsing is a good example -- so
many documents open), a tabbed interface makes a lot of sense.
However, if we wish to have an `application windows with many
documents in it', we would need to change the interface rather more
dramatically than to just change the behaviour of `File->Close' in a
way that breaks the model: AW looks like, and behaves like, an SDI
application. If we tweak `File->Close', it will cause confusion and
frustration.
So if one wanted to, we could add -another- option to AW: SDI or MDI,
where MDI on Windows would result in a classic MS Office-style
interface, and on GNOME as a tabbed (a la galeon) interface.
However, I imagine this would be a lot of work, and probably not worth
the effort for most use cases -- I imagine the `Window' menu is
sufficient (and I was just saying/concurring that we should eliminate it ;-).
For some comparison:
Gnumeric 0.67 also has an SDI, and File->Close closes the current
document, regardless of whether this is the last document.
(it's been this way for as long as I can remember)
KOffice 1.0 has behaviour similar to what Tim is suggesting, but not quite.
When you do File->Close..., it prompts for save etc., and then after
closing the document, prompts you to create a new one or open an
existing one.
It does this EVERY time you try to close a document. In particular, if
you have 12 documents open and try to close one, it closes it, and
then prompts you to create a new one.
Now File->Quit, on the other hand, closes the existing document and
doesn't prompt you to open a new one.
Thus, if you have 2 documents open, and you want to close one of them,
you must `Quit' it; if you want to close both, you must `Quit' both.
Etc. Thus, `Close' actually means: close & new, while `Quit' means close.
I find Gnumeric's behaviour understandable and easy to learn, while
KOffice's I find very annoying -- however, it is consistent within
KOffice, so it's not as bad as it could be.
(later)
Ah, wait, it actually is really obnoxious!
If you `Close' a document and then `Cancel' when it asks you to create
a new one/open an existing one, then it leaves you with a trimmed down
menubar (File, Settings, Help) and a blank space where the document
would be...so long as there is another document open in another
window. Otherwise it quits.
Sorry for indulging in an examination of KOffice 1.0's behaviour --
however, I think it serves as a useful example of what goes wrong when
you try to emulate MDI functionality in an apparently SDI app.
-------------------------
My point is basically: AbiWord currently has an easy to use, easy to
learn, easy to guess SDI, which should be familiar to all users
thanks to popular web browsers.
If we wished, we could have an MDI, but this should NOT be kludged
onto a seemingly SDI frame.
SDI vs. MDI is a design decision, and intermediate solutions are
pretty miserable.
I think more fruitful discussion (than the behaviour of File->Close)
would be -why- AbiWord has an SDI (er, MSDI) instead of an MDI, though
I think Paul has addressed this somewhat.
-- -nils
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