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Subject:Re: WHAT MOVES ON SCREEN? From:ATATTT Documentation Department <att -at- GREX -dot- CYBERSPACE -dot- ORG> Date:Tue, 12 Jul 1994 14:03:26 -0400
actually, it's more than mental masturbation" - if you are writing
a manual for total computer neophytes, you may need to explaine the
concept of windows and how scrolling works in a metaphore that the user
can understand. It was awhile ago, and I can't recall the exact situation,
but I do remember getting into a similar conversation for a specific
document I was working on, so it does happen.
On Thu, 7 Jul 1994, Matt Hicks wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Jul 1994, Rod Hester wrote:
> > Intuition (and working with hypertext) leads me to believe the data
> > moves, not the window. However, it probably depends on the program and
> > the programmer's mental state at the time ;-).
> >
> I have a hard time seeing how the data could be fixed and the window
> moving over it. To me, this implies that all the data is constantly
> displayed under an opaque desktop and thus "window" is a more literal
> term than I realized. Is this truly the conceptual model used by the
> people who first developed windowing systems?
> My take on this is that neither the data nor the window "moves". A
> graphical representation of the data is redisplayed at a number of
> positions within a window, but the data itself remains in a fixed
> location in memory. If you think that either the data or the window
> moves, then what is happening when you relocate a window on your desktop?
> Both the "data" and the window move. If either of the proposed models
> were accurate portrayals of reality, I would expect to see different
> "data" in the window when it arrived at its new location.
> I think this topic is amusing and interesting as a kind of mind expansion
> exercise, but ultimately it's just mental masturbation.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Matt Hicks, Tech. Writer, Unidata * I may not agree with what you
> Boulder, CO, (303)497-8676, ******* say, but I'll defend to the
> matt -at- unidata -dot- ucar -dot- edu ************* death my right to mock you.
