Basic UI idiosyncrasies (bugs?) with 2.7.1 Win version

[Richard Gaskin]

Bob Earp wrote:
 > I guess this is because Rev does not bind all of its components
 > (and any open stack windows) together, as is standard Windows
 > practice with other apps.

The behavior you describe would be appropriate for Mac OS 9 and 
earlier*, but Microsoft describes a different behavior in their Windows HIG:

     When the user reactivates a primary window, the window and
     all its secondary windows come to the top of the window
     order and maintain their relative positions. If the user
     activates a secondary window, its primary window comes to
     the top of the window order along with the primary window's
     other secondary windows.
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwue/html/ch07d.asp>

Elsewhere they define "secondary windows" as:

    ...similar to primary windows but differ in some fundamental
    aspects. This chapter covers the common uses of secondary
    windows, such as property sheets, dialog boxes, palette
    windows, and message boxes.
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwue/html/ch09a.asp>

Applying this to Rev paralance, it would seem reasonable to expect all 
windows which are not toplevel to come to the front (modeless and 
palette).

So while the suggestion that *all* windows come forward may not comply 
with Microsoft's guidelines, at least modeless and palettes should, like 
your observation about the Message Box.

In v2.6.1 (I haven't moved to v2.7.x yet), Rev brings palettes to the 
front, but not modeless.

Given that on Windows modeless windows have the same visual appearance 
as palettes (a silly design decision at MS; anyone know if they've 
improved that in Vista?), it becomes even clearer that modeless windows 
should be brought forward with toplevel stacks.

Is there a BZ request for this?

And is the loss of palettes being brought forward in v2.7 confirmable? 
That would definitely be a bug, and should be reported.



* Thankfully Apple made OS X consistent with all other major GUIs with 
the introduction of interleaved windows:

    Each application and document window exists in its own layer,
    so documents from different applications can be interleaved.
    Clicking a window to bring it to the front doesn’t disturb
    the layering order of any other window.
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGWindows/chapter_17_section_4.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-CHDBBJBH>


--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com