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 Post subject: Drawers
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 1:59 am 
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"Drawers only ever show a single row of icons" i'm wondering if in the future we can have multiple rows so as no to have say 50 icons spanning the entire screen? say we can adjust it for say 5 rows of 10. thanks


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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 5:12 am 
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LeftistDirtBag wrote:
"Drawers only ever show a single row of icons" i'm wondering if in the future we can have multiple rows so as no to have say 50 icons spanning the entire screen? say we can adjust it for say 5 rows of 10. thanks


No. That would already be pretty much a regular Shelf, no?

What you can do instead is limit the size of the Drawer: Drawer Properties -> Appearance -> More Options -> How many rows of icons...

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 1:01 pm 
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winstep wrote:
LeftistDirtBag wrote:
"Drawers only ever show a single row of icons" i'm wondering if in the future we can have multiple rows so as no to have say 50 icons spanning the entire screen? say we can adjust it for say 5 rows of 10. thanks

No. That would already be pretty much a regular Shelf, no?

What you can do instead is limit the size of the Drawer: Drawer Properties -> Appearance -> More Options -> How many rows of icons...

Or, you could configure a normal shelf with just a single tab - then you could have as many rows of icons as you like.

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 1:03 pm 
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winstep wrote:
LeftistDirtBag wrote:
"Drawers only ever show a single row of icons" i'm wondering if in the future we can have multiple rows so as no to have say 50 icons spanning the entire screen? say we can adjust it for say 5 rows of 10. thanks


No. That would already be pretty much a regular Shelf, no?

What you can do instead is limit the size of the Drawer: Drawer Properties -> Appearance -> More Options -> How many rows of icons...


i have a folder with 5 rows of 11 icons in each row, you're basically telling me i'd have to create 5 different folders and then create 5 different drawers, right if i want the drawer fly-out to only be x amount of icon? or create the 5 different folders, and create a vertical shelf for the five folders, right if i want the shelf fly-out to only be x amount of icon?

nexter wrote:
Or, you could configure a normal shelf with just a single tab - then you could have as many rows of icons as you like.


can you please elaborate? thanks


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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 2:00 pm 
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LeftistDirtBag wrote:
i have a folder with 5 rows of 11 icons in each row, you're basically telling me i'd have to create 5 different folders and then create 5 different drawers, right if i want the drawer fly-out to only be x amount of icon? or create the 5 different folders, and create a vertical shelf for the five folders, right if i want the shelf fly-out to only be x amount of icon?


What I am telling you is that menus, docks, shelves and drawers all have the same basic function: launching applications.

Where they differ is in HOW those items are presented to you, as each type of object has its own strengths and weaknesses.

For instance, menus are great to display lots of items (because each item takes very little screen space) and also items similar in nature, where the most important distinguishing feature is not the icon but the text description (for instance, lots of PDF documents that have the same icon and only the actual document title/text is different).

Docks, on the other hand, are great to display items where the main differentiator is the icon (i.e.; all icons are different, which enables you to visually locate the item you want pretty fast). For docks to be truly useful, the icons should be large enough for you to recognize them quickly, which is why magnify is the default mouseover effect and populating a dock with so many icons that it shrinks to the minimum size kind of defeats the purpose. Docks are also intended as quick launchers, which is why they don't have scroll arrows nor do you use them to display the contents of folders in your hard drive.

Shelves, on the other hand, are already a great way to display the contents of folders with lots of items, categorize application groups, etc...

Drawers are a mix of a Shelf and a Dock. Their greatest strength is that they, by default, automatically expand to show all the items in them, but, when collapsed to a tab, use very little screen space.

So, bottom line is: you should use whichever object is best suited for the task you want - and in this particular case it would be a Shelf.

LeftistDirtBag wrote:
can you please elaborate? thanks


With v18.8 you can now create as many Shelves as you want (Preferences -> Docks & Shelves tab -> Create New Shelf). As Ric said, you could create a new Shelf with a single tab, and set the Shelf to automatically display <x> rows of icons when you expand it (Shelf Properties -> Appearance tab -> More Options -> How many rows of icons...) .

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 4:02 pm 
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i guess what most of us were expecting in the drawers feature when it was finally implemented is something like fences but collapsible like workshelf. that's what the user that came up with the idea for drawers suggested in their post, and yes i've gone through the post for new feature ideas. as for actually answering my question i'll take that long winded response as a yes i'd have to put the group of icons into 5 separate folders and create a vertical shelf.


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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2018 4:38 pm 
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LeftistDirtBag wrote:
i guess what most of us were expecting in the drawers feature when it was finally implemented is something like fences but collapsible like workshelf. that's what the user that came up with the idea for drawers suggested in their post, and yes i've gone through the post for new feature ideas.


Ok, first the Drawers idea is not new, it has been on my to-do list for a long time. As evidence I offer THIS POST HERE I made that dates back to Jan 2011.

The word 'Drawers' will be highlighted in yellow to make it easier for you to find it in that post. If you search the forums, you will also notice that it is the very first time the concept of 'Drawers' is mentioned. I mention the idea several times after that over the years, always saying that it should be implemented after adding support for multiple Shelves (and that is exactly what happened).

Second, I have NO IDEA why anyone would think a Drawer would be anything like Fences. Perhaps that is the impression you got, although I don't see how given the description I gave of them in the 'So, what's next after v18.5' thread and in all the other places.

Still, if you can find and paste the text (and the name of the user) that made you think it would be anything like Fences, I would appreciate it.

LeftistDirtBag wrote:
as for actually answering my question i'll take that long winded response as a yes i'd have to put the group of icons into 5 separate folders and create a vertical shelf.


Are you criticizing me for taking the time to explain that different objects have different functions and why, or am I misunderstanding something here? :shock:

You never explained exactly what you are trying to accomplish.

Exactly WHAT are you putting in those 5 folders? Shortcuts to applications? Actual documents/files? If they are shortcuts why do you think you need to put them on folders first instead of simply dragging them to a Regular tab in the Shelf?

It seems to me there is some misunderstanding regarding what the Shelf does and how it works. If all you want is 5 rows of 10 icons, then you create a new single tabbed Shelf, as already suggested twice, resize it so it shows 10 icons per row, and set the Shelf to display 5 icon rows by default when you open it.

No idea why you seem to think this requires you to create 5 different folders?!

Also, you do know that the Shelf can display about 20 *different/specialized* tab types, no? For instance, you can create a tab that accepts normal shortcuts just like a dock (Regular tab type), a tab that shows the contents of a folder in your hard drive (Show Folder tab type), a tab that shows the content of your Windows Desktop (Desktop tab type), and so on...

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 12:17 am 
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ok so you're saying that on the vertical shelf i only nee one self tab with 5 rows? that's good. now as for drawers i know the person who first suggest drawers to you and if his post aren't here then you deleted them, but make no mistake the idea for drawers was not yours.


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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 6:47 am 
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LeftistDirtBag wrote:
ok so you're saying that on the vertical shelf i only nee one self tab with 5 rows? that's good. now as for drawers i know the person who first suggest drawers to you and if his post aren't here then you deleted them, but make no mistake the idea for drawers was not yours.


You are off to good start with me, definitely! False accusations now?!

Never claimed the idea of Drawers was mine, by the way, just that I was the first to talk about it HERE in the forums. The original Drawers idea comes from a screenshot I saw many, many, years ago for DragThing, a Shelf equivalent for MacOSX. We are talking early 2000's, and even then that has absolutely ZERO to do with the Fences concept.

It's on you the burden of proof now, to produce 'the person you know who first suggested drawers to me'. You may say you can't find such a post or person (because you won't, what you are saying is NOT true and if you can prove me wrong I will be the first to apologize) but if you try to suggest again that I deleted his post, I promise I will ban you from here faster than you can say your own name.

Or you can admit you are wrong and we call it a day.

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 10:55 am 
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winstep wrote:
LeftistDirtBag wrote:
ok so you're saying that on the vertical shelf i only nee one self tab with 5 rows? that's good. now as for drawers i know the person who first suggest drawers to you and if his post aren't here then you deleted them, but make no mistake the idea for drawers was not yours.

You are off to good start with me, definitely! False accusations now?!

Never claimed the idea of Drawers was mine, by the way, just that I was the first to talk about it HERE in the forums. The original Drawers idea comes from a screenshot I saw many, many, years ago for DragThing, a Shelf equivalent for MacOSX. We are talking early 2000's, and even then that has absolutely ZERO to do with the Fences concept.

It's on you the burden of proof now, to produce 'the person you know who first suggested drawers to me'. You may say you can't find such a post or person (because you won't, what you are saying is NOT true and if you can prove me wrong I will be the first to apologize) but if you try to suggest again that I deleted his post, I promise I will ban you from here faster than you can say your own name.

Or you can admit you are wrong and we call it a day.

Don't let the buggers grind you down, Jorge. ;) This whole thread is sailing pretty close to the wind of trolling, it seems to me.

DragThing, ISTR, was somewhere around 2001-2 when MOSX was still young. And the earliest third-party reference to "drawers" I could find here was about an entirely different concept relating to some other taskbar replacement (or Explorer shell replacement?), or possibly some kind of dock, way back about 2004. Again, totally unrelated to Fences. Which in any event wasn't even around at that time unless I'm very much mistaken. (I could dig up that post if necessary - in the Wishlist thread.)

IIRC, the concept of Workshelf drawers probably first came up very early in Workshelf's life, probably around 1.0 Jorge or even earlier? This forum didn't even exist yet in those days and we were using IRC and Yahoo groups - anybody remember those days when discussions used to be real lively? ;)

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 5:14 pm 
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nexter wrote:
This whole thread is sailing pretty close to the wind of trolling, it seems to me.


Unfortunately I really don't think this is a troll, I recognize the 'all air, no action' tactics. Anyway, he's been warned.

nexter wrote:
DragThing, ISTR, was somewhere around 2001-2 when MOSX was still young. And the earliest third-party reference to "drawers" I could find here was about an entirely different concept relating to some other taskbar replacement (or Explorer shell replacement?), or possibly some kind of dock, way back about 2004. Again, totally unrelated to Fences. Which in any event wasn't even around at that time unless I'm very much mistaken. (I could dig up that post if necessary - in the Wishlist thread.)


When I do a search for 'Drawers' in the forums, as I did before, the first (oldest) post that comes up is from 2006, made by our very own John T.Folden, but in it he was referring to the Shelf itself, not the actual Drawers concept.

"If a dock is the "top" of your desk, featuring frequently used tools, then WorkShelf is all the drawers below it."

The very next reference was made by me in 2011, as I mentioned above:

"What I see coming, with the advent of multiple Shelves, is the ability to have 'drawers' (i.e. single tab Shelves which open perpendicular to their position on the screen, a bit like sub-docks do by default)."

nexter wrote:
IIRC, the concept of Workshelf drawers probably first came up very early in Workshelf's life, probably around 1.0 Jorge or even earlier? This forum didn't even exist yet in those days and we were using IRC and Yahoo groups - anybody remember those days when discussions used to be real lively? ;)


I still have all those posts, back to my very first test message to the Winstep 2000 mailing list in February 1999. :)

The times were very different, people still got excited and involved with new software utilities, etc...

Anyway, I remember me and John looking at Dragthing back when I started coding WorkShelf. As with most everything Mac OSX related, Dragthing has some really nice default themes. It was also very flexible: you could do docks/bars with it as well, and single tab bars docked at the edge of the screen. I don't know if those were actually called Drawers (probably not) but I vividly remember seeing the user's screenshot that inspired my vision of them.

And as it happened with Nexus, I might take my time, but I usually end up delivering. You might want to grab a chair while you wait, though. ;)

Unfortunately Dragthing is pretty much abandonware these days, and that screenshot is so old anyway that I can no longer find it in their forums.

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 Post subject: Re: So, what's next after v18.8?
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2018 9:22 pm 
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winstep wrote:
nexter wrote:
This whole thread is sailing pretty close to the wind of trolling, it seems to me.

Unfortunately I really don't think this is a troll, I recognize the 'all air, no action' tactics. Anyway, he's been warned.

Indeed, on all counts. But sailing very close to the wind.
winstep wrote:
nexter wrote:
DragThing, ISTR, was somewhere around 2001-2 when MOSX was still young. And the earliest third-party reference to "drawers" I could find here was about an entirely different concept relating to some other taskbar replacement (or Explorer shell replacement?), or possibly some kind of dock, way back about 2004. Again, totally unrelated to Fences. Which in any event wasn't even around at that time unless I'm very much mistaken. (I could dig up that post if necessary - in the Wishlist thread.)

When I do a search for 'Drawers' in the forums, as I did before, the first (oldest) post that comes up is from 2006, made by our very own John T.Folden, but in it he was referring to the Shelf itself, not the actual Drawers concept.

"If a dock is the "top" of your desk, featuring frequently used tools, then WorkShelf is all the drawers below it."

The very next reference was made by me in 2011, as I mentioned above:

"What I see coming, with the advent of multiple Shelves, is the ability to have 'drawers' (i.e. single tab Shelves which open perpendicular to their position on the screen, a bit like sub-docks do by default)."

Yep, seen those posts too. I'll try and find that post I mentioned tomorrow.
winstep wrote:
nexter wrote:
IIRC, the concept of Workshelf drawers probably first came up very early in Workshelf's life....

I still have all those posts, back to my very first test message to the Winstep 2000 mailing list in February 1999. :)

The times were very different, people still got excited and involved with new software utilities, etc...

Anyway, I remember me and John looking at Dragthing back when I started coding WorkShelf. As with most everything Mac OSX related, Dragthing has some really nice default themes. It was also very flexible: you could do docks/bars with it as well, and single tab bars docked at the edge of the screen. I don't know if those were actually called Drawers (probably not) but I vividly remember seeing the user's screenshot that inspired my vision of them.

And as it happened with Nexus, I might take my time, but I usually end up delivering. You might want to grab a chair while you wait, though. ;)

Unfortunately Dragthing is pretty much abandonware these days, and that screenshot is so old anyway that I can no longer find it in their forums.

I remember - it seemed the one good thing about the whole damn UI. (My "beef" with The Dark Side is threefold - 1) Leaving us NeXT users high and dry by reneging on the promised PC version of MacOS X Server and the "assured" future for OS users on Intel; 2) Totally feckin' up the whole wonderful OPENSTEP OS with that ghastly Carbon API - which was supposed to be only a transitory thing - and not only replacing a beautiful and powerful UI with a useles and ugly one (worst had to be the lozenge look - Aqua!), and bit by bit effectively crippling the OS; 3) Their whole "design-led/oriented" philosophy post the merger and their quasi-religious marketing etc.)

Yep, these days nobody seems to be arsed to engage anymore, which is not a healthy thing for development. Just the odd request/suggestion/comment alone isn't very helpful, and the number of views of such is not necessarily an indication of how much demand there might be, etc.

But my goodness, all those archives!? Wow. I know I still have some of the very earliest from IRC and whatever the groups thing or mailing list thing was we used before Yahoo, somewhere. I just hope they aren't lost for good on my now totally dead old USB 2 disk. I know that certainly at least some of my earliest and last (prior to coming back with 18.1) NS and NS/WS installer archives were there, as I tried to copy them unsuccessfully last time that disk let Windows recognise it. Would be a real bummer as I was hoping to install the last version I had from around late 2006, which must have included an early NeXus - as I've got a couple of old themes from about that time with NeXus bitmaps etc. - under XP, as a kind of theme development aid/testing ground for backward compatibility.

As for pulling up a chair - LOL! Well, but you always do deliver in the end, and good thing not only is always worth waiting for but also takes a good time to be *this* good. :) How long have we, e.g., been waiting for a vertical shelf? Well, if I'd kept waiting in that chair I would be thoroughly decomposed by now, but we do have it now at last! ;)

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 Post subject: Re: Drawers
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 10:56 am 
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Got it! It's the third post on very the first page of the Winstep Wishlist thread. October 22nd, 2004.
pdjones2112 wrote:
I would like to see a "drawer" applet for the startbar, similar to the one you could get in Gnome....

Of course, nothing to do with either Workshelf Drawers or Fences.

I'm pretty sure the latter wasn't around at the time anyway, and WS drawers got at least some mention way before that - maybe you could even find it in your old list/group or IRC archives, Jorge. But what would be the point of wasting time on that - it's down to the "challenger" to come up with solid evidence, which he can't because he doesn't have any.

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