[danasutton@mac.com]

In the hope that somebody on the development team reads these posts, I'd like to reiterate a gripe I've made before: that OmniWeb forces you to chose one predetermined window location and size by going Window>Save Window Size, so that if I want to place a window in a different location, or choose a different size, I must do so manually (which can be a drag in both senses of the word). Omni likes to boast (and very justifiably so) about how Mac-like OmniWeb is. Well, here is a significant and, I think, quite unjustified departure from a standard Mac GUI convention, according to which an app. opens a window in the same location, and of the same size and shape, as its immediate predecessor. Why can't OmniWeb adhere to standard GUI conventions EXACTLY so its ergonomic behavior is unannoyingly predicatable? Or, if anybody actually likes this peculiar window behavior, at least can't you offer it to them as a non-default Preference option?

[Forrest]

1. Posting multiple threads to discuss the same topic is generally considered rude.

2. If you want to make sure your feedback is heard by the OG, the "official" method is to use the Feedback option from within OW. Though it's likely safe to say at least one person from the OG has already read it.

[Len Case]

Originally Posted by danasutton@mac.com

Omni likes to boast (and very justifiably so) about how Mac-like OmniWeb is. Well, here is a significant and, I think, quite unjustified departure from a standard Mac GUI convention, according to which an app. opens a window in the same location, and of the same size and shape, as its immediate predecessor.

I know that TextEdit (from Apple) certainly does not have that behavior. Neither does Terminal. Finder keeps track of the window size based on the directory it starts on (that is, it remembers the size you had your home directory at, but if you switch to your desktop and resize, then a new finder window will still have the size you last had for your home directory, not the latest window).

Can you show me an example of an app that is not a web browser with that behavior or a reference in the Apple Human Interface Guidelines? There are some guidelines regarding multiple monitors and making sure the new windows are on the same screen--but in the single monitor case they don't really specify and they explicitly state that the size of the window is to be determined by the application.

Web browsers got the behavior you mention with IE which changed behavior not with previous window modified but the most recently closed window which was really annoying with the introduction of popup windows.

[danasutton@mac.com]

Can you show me an example of an app that is not a web browser with that behavior or a reference in the Apple Human Interface Guidelines?

Dreamweaver,for one

[Len Case]

Originally Posted by danasutton@mac.com

Dreamweaver,for one

Well, arguably Dreamweaver is a Web content creation app, so the "Mac" behavior you want is really "Web" behavior.

I misspoke to ask for any example app--I made my point with TextEdit and Terminal: both of them have preferences for the default window size, neither of them remembers where the last window is currently, only where it was originally, both are written by Apple and are clearly Mac-like without this behavior. None of our other applications work this way (Outliner, Graffle) and yet I hear no complaints about them.

The only reason people care is because we are a web browser--that said, given that we are a web-browser, perhaps there should be an easier way to set the default size/location or a preference to automatically update the default size/location.

I know there are quite a few people who like our way of doing it once they realize how to save the window size--but it is problematic that so many people are unaware of our solution.

I am curious tho, how often do you actually want to change the default? Why? Is the more important issue size or position?

[Bob Williams]

Actually, if you're talking about proper Mac behavior, the correct method when dealing with document windows, as laid out in Apple's well-thought-out Human Interface Guidelines many years ago, is to open each subsequent window offset horizontally and vertically from the previous enough that you can read and click on the preceding windows' title bars.

You can see this behavior in such well-designed third-party apps as BBEdit, Interarchy, and, yes, OmniWeb. With Apple's apps, TextEdit, Mail, Address Book, and even the often-obnoxious Finder work this way. Apple's not completely with the game, though - Terminal does it right sometimes, but other times, it picks seemingly random positions. Note, though, that to see this behavior in its full glory in some apps (like OW), your window must be small enough to shift in both directions; if it's not, then the shift will only occur in one or neither direction. (In other apps, subsequent windows are made a bit smaller to allow the shift. Which is better is very debatable and probably best chosen on an app-by-app basis.) Of course, other factors are considered, as well, such as whether the title bar can be reached in the proposed position.

I think my ideal for a web browser is to save a user-defined size, then offset new windows appropriately but without changing the size (which means at the upper limit, which is full-screen, you simply end up with another full-screen window). And, this is exactly what OW does. I don't see how it's unpredictable or peculiar - it's in accordance with recommendations designed through research to maximize usability.

[Bob Williams]

Originally Posted by Len Case

I know there are quite a few people who like our way of doing it once they realize how to save the window size--but it is problematic that so many people are unaware of our solution.

I suggest giving OW some intelligence. Monitor what folks are doing with their windows, and if you see them repeatedly resizing and relocating new windows to roughly the same coordinates, then tell them about the Save Window Size command. There are other opportunities for this sort of intelligence, too. For instance, if you see someone repeatedly opening links in new foreground tabs then immediately switching back to the previous tab, tell them how to directly open links in background tabs. Or if you see them typing many lines of text into a multi-line field, tell them how to do it in an external window. Or if you see them constantly typing out "http://www.xxx.com/", tell them how to type less. And so on.

Of course, you need to have some very well-chosen preferences to control the intelligence, but it's a good way to get people who refuse to read the docs using the full power of the app.

[Jon Hicks]

Originally Posted by danasutton@mac.com

OmniWeb forces you to chose one predetermined window location and size by going Window>Save Window Size, so that if I want to place a window in a different location, or choose a different size, I must do so manually

I'm not sure I understand what the problem is here, but to me it seems like "of course you have to do it manually, how else could it do it?".

However, don't forget the you can save a different window position and size in each workspace. Omniweb remembers it each time, rather than making them all conform to saved window sizes.

[derekJAB]

Originally Posted by Jon Hicks

However, don't forget the you can save a different window position and size in each workspace. Omniweb remembers it each time, rather than making them all conform to saved window sizes.

Thanks. I didn't know that. So many features still to be discovered.

[Maurice Ravel]

I don't know if there is a standard way for programs to open window positions on the Mac.

I do rather like the way OmniWeb allows you to save a "default" window size.

Apple's own Script Editor for AppleScript behaves like this, or in fact nearly like this, the Script Editor remembers the size of the window but opens each new window in any given session a bit down and across from the first window that was opened in that session. That first window is opened in the position you have saved in the Script Editor application. With Script Editor the previous open window size has no influence whatsoever on the size of a new window.

Historically programs like SimpleText just always opened a new window in exactly the same location without any consideration at all to previous window positions.

Seminal Mac programs like Nisus Writer open all new windows according the window size of a template file, which means of course all new files created with command-N always open in the same size which has been defined by the user who creates the template file.

In fact I think Microsoft Word behaves like this as it creates new files from a template as well, but I'm not sure about that one.

Personally I keep a group of extremely simple AppleScripts for setting windows on the Mac to favoured positions. This prevents a lot of dragging and resizing.

Here is an example of one:

tell application "OmniWeb"
activate
if window 1 exists then
set bounds of window 1 to {350, 0, 1500, 1100}
else
display dialog "No open window"
end if
end tell

I'm using a 20" screen iMac so the above co-ordinates work out well for me on that quite large screen.

If you work out a set of useful window sizes then you can just save the same script each time with the different window sizes entered of course.