On Mon, 6 Sep 1999, Andrew C. Greenberg wrote:

> Credit where credit is due, Bob's contribution here is a substantial
> one.  However, it hasn't supplanted the inspector; and wouldn't be my
> choice ever (because of the windowing problem) when in MVC.
>
> >OTOH, the cmd-shift-I sounds good, too.
>
> Clearly the better of the two possibilities, IMHO.  If we do that,
> perhaps we ought to rename it the "hierarchical inspector, so they
> both have an "i" therein?

I agree that cmd-shift-I is probably the way to go for now.

I think that eventually, though, the ObjectExplorer could potentially
supplant the inspector.  We should give it more time, to get more familiar
with using it, and allow for further improvements.  It would probably need
an evaluation area tacked onto the bottom (like the old inspector's), and
the windowing problem in MVC would need to be fixed.  A potentially more
friendly way of supplanting the old inspector would be to have a
Preference setting for which should be the "inspect it (i)" inspector
(with ObjectExplorer as the default preference).

Speaking of the Morphic-window-inside-MVC-window problem, I just mentioned
an offset bug in a different message.  Even if that were fixed, it would
be nice if it was less of a "window inside a window".  It seems like it
might not be too hard to have the Morphic window open in a sort of "full
screen" mode when inside an MVC window.  The only changes you'd have to
make would be to remove the title bar, and to have it respond whenever the
MVC window (a.k.a. PasteUpMorph) is resized.  Then it would look and feel
pretty close to a normal window.  (The gap for the flop-out scrollbar
would be an unavoidable annoyance, I guess.)  I may look into this,
although I think I'll leave the offset bug for someone else. :-)

- Doug Way
  EAI/Transom Technogies, Ann Arbor, MI
  dway at eai.com, dway at mat.net
  http://www.transom.com