Re: The Manager - how the damn thing works

[bazyar@teal.csn.org (Jawaid Bazyar)]

gudat@avalon.physik.unizh.ch (gudat henrik) writes:

>Please read the whole text, it took about 1 hour to type that stuff!!

>Okay, he's the promised info...
> 
>First you install TM (The Manager) with the simple Installer. It only
>copies a file called Hierarchic (guess what that means, huh???) and
>The.Manager into the System folder. (BTW, the first one seems to be a
>toolbox patch or some other kind of enhancement for hierarchic menus.
>It appears in the CDA menu where you can change "drag delay" and
>"initial delay" in discrete steps. Until now, however, I haven't seen
>such a menu life in action. But TM doesn't work wihtout this file.)

  Heirarchical menus?  Switch-It! is much simpler in operation
and learning.  Don't take this wrong, folks, but most Apple II
users want to know simply "what can this do for me?" instead of
play with pull down menus.
 
>application (SetStart). If you coose the latter option, the Manager
>will be your start app. Note that you can still use the ol' Finder! It
>only appends three extras and the TM-Menu to the far left. Everything
>else belongs to the FInder. That should be clear now...

  Exactly like Switch-It!
 
>To launch a program, start it from the finder. Business as usual. When
>it's loaded, you'll notice that this app has been added to the new menu
>(exactly as on the Mac). Now if you click into the desktop, the menu is
>being redrawn _immediately_, and the desktop as well (TM redraws the
>desktop quite often [ca. 2x when switching apps, of course not when
>you're in one particular program] which is a bit boring in the course
>of time. But cleaning up the Finder desktop helps enormously.)
>If the application you've launched opened a window, you can jump back
>by clicking it.

  Okay, Switch-It! doesn't keep 640 mode windows from all apps on the screen,
but neither does it do unneeded desktop refreshes.
 
>There are several option for avoiding a big mess on the screen:
>- Hide Me
>- Hide Others
>- Show All
>- Hide Others When I'm Selected
>- Hide Me When Others are Selected

  Lots of complicated options.
 
>These menu items are all in the new menu to the far left. Below these
>entries is the list with the currently loaded apps.
> 
>I have used only one 320 application so far. What TM does is hide the
>Finder's desktop and all other 640 windows and use the standard
>background (as if TM were not installed). If this application can
>switch modes and you activate the 640 resolution, the Finder icons
>appear again - so no problem.

  Here's another user-interface quandary; changing the operation 
of the program in a modal way is not a good thing.

>Text applications (Merlin for example)
> 
>Work fine. TM supports a "Finder" key combination (OA-Control-TAB)
>which activates the Finder. Using this technique you can suspend Merlin
>and return to the desktop interface. Merlin is still in memory - select
>it in the TM-Menu to resume.
>As I said before, software developers will like this feature. You'll
>get used to it damn fast...

  Switch-It! has marginal support for text apps right now.  That will
change :-)

>ProDos 8 apps
> 
>Here's where TM is limited. To run a P8 app, you need to quit all
>programs - except for the Finder.
>If you have still some suspended programs around, TM displays a dialog
>box. That's one thing I really like: TM has tons of dialog boxes which
>inform you every problem very nicely and accurately. It doesn't crash
>but shows you exactly why it couldn't finish an operation.

  Switch-It! has large numbers of "watch out.." or "I can't do this..."
dialogs.
 
>3200 color programs
> 
>A friend told me that DreamGrafix does not work with TM. The system
>doesn't crash{. But it seems as if the problem is with DG, not with TM
>because DG requires the bank 01 SHR page. I've noticed that QuickDraw
>operates without shadowing (funny, huh?). Please reread this sentence
>because this also means that desktop stuff is a bit slower! (I'm not
>sure whether shadowing is _always_ turned off, but at least Symbolix
>did not use bank 01 (it usually does).)
> 
>GIF3200 (v0.2) does _NOT_ work. I assume that it can't allocate enough
>zero page space. It immediately quits to the Finder - it does not
>violate system integrity.

  The problem in these cases is not with the applications, but
with the Manager. I know exactly what the problem is but I'm
not saying what, because it's a trade secret.  Certain Switch-It!
beta testers have accused me of not testing/designing my software
thoroughly enough.  I beg to differ.

>MOD players
> 
>I've been using SoniqTracker almost daily (congratulations, Tim!). It
>runs! Only the "goofy player" has cosmetic problems: the indicators
>cant be seen. Again, that's because QuickDraw is not using shadowing.
>If you can live without, you're happy.
>(I guess that future version will fix the shadowing stuff)

  No, that's because the Manager is broken. :-)

>Memory (gimme mooo...)
> 
>You can load ca. 4 apps with 3.2MB. The vital factor is not fast RAM
>but zero page space. With nothing else in memory, I had 27kB free ZP
>space (note: with a few inits and NDA. Haven't yet tried disabling
>them). One program allocates ca. 4kB, but a few programs (APPLEWORKS
>GS!!! 20kB !!!!) are reeeaaal memory hogs. I have normally Merlin,
>Symbolix, GraphicWriter, and SoniqTracker in memory, and that's fine
>(though you can't open large documents, more RAM will solve the
>problem).

  With Switch-It! you can load 10 applications or more with that
amount of memory.  Zero page space is _not_ a limitation in Switch-It!.
 
>Attributes

>Each applications has a few attributes. You can specify them very
>easily: click the icon in the finder, then select TM Application Setup
>from the Extras menu. A dialog appears whith a few check boxes:
 
>Preferences
> 
>First, there is a BREAK handler. TM detects breaks and tries to
>recover. The manual says (it's the best statement I've seen so far..):
>"[not a quote, but as close as possible]...TM then displays and tries
>to handle the error. You can click Continue though the system crashes
>ANYWAY." Haaaahahahaha

  That's pretty evil; what happens to GSBug?  Is this configurable?
 
>BTW, a great thing is this: TM patches SysFailMgr by showing an alert
>box and then retunring to the Finder. The program that _wanted_ to
>crash is dimmed and can't be selected. Though the error message says
>that you should save all documents immediately, I've worked with this
>corrupted system for hours!

  It's not a good idea to do that if a program crashed; but the
idea of trapping SysFailMgr is valid and is implemented in GNO.
 
>Quitting
> 
>TM installs a new ShutDown dialog in the Finder. You can select
>- Shut Down
>- Restart
>- Quit
>- Use MiniFinder
 
>Selecting Quit leaves TM and "starts" the Finder. Of course, the Finder
>was always active but upon selecting Quit TM has gone. Now you can
>start 3200 color programs and other wild things. To reactivate TM,
>launch the application. This takes only a few seconds, so switching
>back and forth isn't too annoying.
> 
>There's one difference (among others, of course) between TM and the
>Mac: you can quit with open applications. TM asks you twice ("do you
>really...") but does not force you to shut down each app.

  Augh!  That's _really_ stupid.  So if a user does that they'll
have several MEGS of memory laying around that cannot be deallocated
and cannot be used.
 
>Quit is dimmed when a program violated system integrity (SysFailMgr).
>You have to restart the system (if you feel it's not safe to continue).

>One reason why I'm impressed is that v1.0 is extremely stabile. I've
>used only a few, updated programs but had not one single crash. Also,
>there are text files which tell you exactly which programs cause
>problems and why. For example, Phantasm does not work because it is
>does some criminal things. So don't blame TM for each ajnd everything.
  
  Phantasm doesn't work with Switch-It!, either :-)
 
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  Now for a disclaimer; I've not seen The Manager, but I do know
its theory of operation quite well, having written a virtually
identical product.  I can honestly and unbiasedly (is that a word?)
state that it's obvious from descriptions from Henrik and others
that the authors of The Manager overlooked certain rather important
aspects of switching technology.  But while the claim is that
The Manager is easier to use, I would dispute that - Joe P. ComputerUser
almost never uses MultiFinder on the Macintosh.  Throwing 
heirarchical menus and different modes of operation at these users
is not going to interest them.  Just my two cents (okay, about a
buck forty-five, but you get the idea :-)


-- 
 Jawaid Bazyar              |   Ask me about the GNO Multitasking Environment
 Procyon, Inc.              |   for the Apple IIgs!   
 bazyar@cs.uiuc.edu         |   P.O Box 620334
 --Apple II Forever!--      |   Littleton, CO 80162-0334   (303) 933-4649