Sticky palettes

[Richard Gaskin]

Ken Norris wrote:

> The "drawer" thing is pretty neat too, but
> probably the wrong metaphor for my purposes. I want to do the UI for
> convenience, but yet not show them unfamiliar stuff.

The tougher thing about drawers is that they're OS X-specific; there is no
corollary in other OSes.

But I found some hope in Apple's suggestions for their usage:
  
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGui
delines/XHIGWindows/chapter_16_section_3.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961/B
ACEFIJH>

That's such a specific definition that the number of cases where a drawer is
truly needed are few.

More interesting to me was scrolling down to the section below drawers, on
what Apple calls a "source list".  That's very much like Win components in
many respects, and covers a significant subset of what used to be
recommended for drawers in earlier HIG releases.

I suppose one could make two UIs, one for Apple and one for everyone else.
For myself, I prefer to just split it down the middle and deliver one UI
using elements common to all platforms.  I'm grateful for platform-specific
appearances, but like Macromedia, Adobe, and other companies that maintain
an internal HIG for cross-platform apps, I try to avoid haing a user relearn
my UI when they switch platforms.

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
 Fourth World Media Corporation
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