Eudora Going OSS

[Ashley Aitken]

Hi David (et al.),

On 15/10/2006, at 2:57 PM, David Cake wrote:

> William Ehrich said:
>> I use Eudora because I prefer the Mac style with separate windows  
>> to the Windows Explorer style with its directory tree in a window  
>> pane, and because it's easy to read a lot of mail with keyboard  
>> shortcuts that Mail.app has rejected so far.
>> It's too bad that Apple feel they have to ape the Microsoft style.  
>> Probably a marketing thing. :-(
>
> 	I think there are some issues that go right back to fundamental  
> system architecture. In Mac OS (Eudora dates from Mac OS 7 era)  
> creating windows is a lightweight, easy operation. There is no  
> performance issue with an app that creates many windows on Mac OS  
> 8/9 - by contrast, creating windows is a relatively expensive  
> operation on Mac OS X. Accordingly, Apple has tended to move most  
> of its apps towards a paned UI - or at least, this seems a  
> plausible explanation for a notable trend.

Yes, but I personally think it was more a UI choice (rather than a  
choice forced on them by the architecture of OSX).  I think,  
generally speaking, that single pane (or tabbed) applications are  
easier to use than ones with lots of windows, especially for the  
average user.

Personally, I've found that I like tabbed applications (e.g. Safari  
and Path Finder) and (primarily) single pane applications (like Mail  
and Xcode) more than I thought I would.  Of course, all of these give  
you the best of both worlds when you need it.

All I need now is a split-pane view in Finder (or Path Finder,  
probably more likely to appear there) and I think the move will be  
pretty much complete (for me at least).  Some things are messier in  
Finder than I think they should be without a split-pane view.

Cheers,
Ashley.

--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
Skype Name: MrHatken (GMT + 8 Hours!)