I've been fooling around with several word processors lately, and each
one has a different way of reacting to "close the last document."
AbiWord - quits
LyX - leaves a blank frame, use File->New to start another
SIAG/pw - leaves a blank document
Of the three, I like pw's reaction the best. I'm a long-time Mac user
and closet Unix weenie (how's THAT for a combination? :-), and as another
lister pointed out, Macs will leave the toolbar up with no window. So
there's a fourth option, which I hope will be implemented properly on
MacOS to avoid the Wrath of HIG....
Frankly, I was annoyed -- at first -- when AW closed down like that.
But thanks to caching, I could re-start it almost instantly. So I set
up a button on my kpanel to launch AbiWord & it's much better. (This
is MkLinux if anyone's curious.)
Handling multiple documents is yet another fun interface design issue.
Once again, each of the three does it differently:
AbiWord
Puts up a big window for each instance (ala Windoze). This
requires a LOT of screen real-estate -- especially with the
current "display the entire paper width" behavior. KDE, with
its multiple desktops, is your friend here. Can you at least
give the option, in future releases, to not display the
margins? (Wraparound/editable tool bars, I assume, are planned.)
LyX
Puts up one window for everything. One document on top, and
no quick way to tell what's underneath. (Document menu.)
SIAG/pw
Like LyX, but has a strip of tabs at the bottom of the window.
You can click on a tab to bring that document to the front.
This took a few minutes to get used to, but then I LIKED it.
(No, I don't suggest you do this.)
I hadn't said anything about interface design up to now, since I figured
that y'all wanted to concentrate more on getting something functioning.
But with people actually using AbiWord now, maybe it's time to talk
about it.
Larry