[ros-kernel] Re: CVS Update: reactos

[Waldo Alvarez Cañizares]

________________________________

From: ros-kernel-bounces at reactos.com on behalf of Royce Mitchell III
Sent: Tue 3/23/2004 9:56 AM
To: ReactOS Kernel List
Subject: Re: [ros-kernel] Re: CVS Update: reactos




<snip>

I can't see how this feature could co-exist with the previous one you
just mentioned, and I'll tell you why it would be difficult: what part
of the app should windows drop it on if you drop it on the app's task
bar spot? For example, In Thunderbird, If I drag a file into the message
are of the e-mail I'm typing, it creates a link or embeds a picture. To
"attach" a file, I have to drag it to the top part where I enter the
e-mail addresses and the subject. How is Windows going to know which
part of the application to apply the drag drop to? It seems to me it
would require adding something to the api for an app to "register" it's
default drag/drop, which I don't think would fly very well.

About coexistence with the previous one Explorer knows if one of the task button is being dragged. Right?

About dropping something in a task bar button, well we could send the message to the main window's procedure of the application that owns the taskbar button. If  some user wants a more refined way to drop files... Well, in such case we should wait as we do in windows. Notice that also we could make the wait time to show a window in such case to be configurable too. Jej I would put 100 or 50 ms :). I have not dealed too much with drag and drop (except handling the message to get the file name from the window's callback) but AFAIK there is a way to get the point where the drop occurred. We could set the center of the application window in such case and again if it does not work as you would like then you have to wait. It would be good if such a feature can be disabled because some users could find it unpleasant.

Explorer should be as conftable and configurable as possible, because is an application you use all the time. Also explorer could help spread the voice of ReactOS. I have seen some websites that distribute old versions of the reactos explorer so users can customize their desktops (of course being old buggy and incomplete versions probably no one uses them). IMO it is one of the most important applications in ReactOS.

<snip>

 

>About the clock . I think it could be set to hide too. For example unhide it with a mouse click, passing the mouse over a small button or pressing a key combination. And of course a nice feature could be if you could configure it to tell you if there is some time/date (multiple alarms with some message like "hey you remember to turn off the ..." or some things like it) the task scheduler can be used for this in windows but usually users do not use it. Also it could say the time using speakers if available and be set to make some sound or show a notification message at determined intervals like hours etc. I know there are programs that do this stuff, but... we don't need them.
>
> 
>
Personally I like having the time always visible. The idea of a built-in
"reminder" is pretty cool, and wouldn't bloat our explorer very much,
methinks. A simple decent implementation should be pretty small. I don't
like the rest of that, but I imagine somebody would :P

I like to see the time right away too but it takes some area of the task bar even when you don't want to see the time, so... why not have something in the middle (always show - quick show - hidden). Also notice that it could be a small icon (a small clock maybe) that puts a tooltip when you put the mouse over it.  About the rest, it won't overbloat either, playing sounds is just a matter of call PlaySound, making one sound for each of the numbers in the hour or the sound for the days of the week  is very easy too, beleiveme lots of users will love that, it is not a matter of "a nice feature" it could be very useful. with that your computer becomes a clock right away for example if you are busy doing something while you leave the computer doing some heavy calculations downloading something or just serving you don't even have to take a look to know the time if it tells you at regular intervals (Je with it you can almost throw away wall clocks if you have a computer around always turned on).

There is another feature I forgot to tell about the clock. Windows's clock can't be configured to increase the size of the text it displays (at least not independently of the rest) and some people finds that it is too little (Not everyone have eyes with 20x20). Make sure it can be configured too!! I would like also to configure what is printed and how is printed. The windows clock only shows the date all the time if the task bar is taller.

Best Regards
Waldo Alvarez

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