At 8:23 PM -0400 4/17/00, Doug Way wrote:
>I meant to post about this earlier, as a possible bug in 2.8alpha.
>
>For some reason, the SystemWindow morph is always being skipped when you
>cycle through the various submorph halos.  I don't think this was
>intended... I'm guessing this is a bug.


Actually, it *was* intended.

I'm sure that most users will have observed that SystemWindows have 
an uneasy and often misleading relationship to halos.  Unlike other 
morphs, SystemWindows come armed with their own controls for moving, 
resizing, labeling, dismissing, and menus -- and these controls are 
very different from the corresponding halo controls.  For example, 
the way you resize a regular morph and the way you resize a 
SystemWindow differ radically, and if you try to use the halo to 
resize a SystemWindow you'll get something very strange.  And very 
few of the standard halo-based menu items are appropriate for 
SystemWindows.

A key goal of the halo rework was to make the standard halo-gesture 
do what people most of the time want (and to support, by way of a 
general "escape", a "shifted" halo gesture that allows the halo to be 
appear on *any* object.

When working with "naked morphs" (i.e. morphs not in SystemWindows), 
it seemed that most often the initial halo should be brought up on 
the entire outermost naked morph, making it easy, for example, to 
dismiss a RecordingControlsMorph (formerly this required numerous 
successive cmd-clicks).  But that same philosophy, if applied to 
SystemWindows, would result in users' frequently getting halos on 
windows with their first cmd-click.

These two worlds of controls -- SystemWindows vs. 
halos-on-other-morphs -- are so different in flavor that in the halo 
rework, a conscious decision was made *not* to make it that easy to 
get a halo for a SystemWindow -- though it is indeed possible, via 
successive cmd-shift-click gestures.

Perhaps this was a wrong choice, but in any case it was made after 
listening to many suggestions and trying out many alternatives.  I 
still consider the choices settled on to be worthwhile improvements, 
and I will be interested to hear other opinions on the subject -- 
especially after the initial shock of unfamiliarity wears off.

   -- Scott