[TxMt] Window persistency (was Just came here ...)

[Andreas Wahlin]

On Jul 24, 2005, at 22:21 , Allan Odgaard wrote:

> On 24/07/2005, at 22.10, Sune Foldager wrote:
>
>
>>> many programs remember their windows settings... every finder  
>>> window remembers it's settings (though that gets stored in  
>>> the .DS_store file I suppose). And it should really be  
>>> centralised I think if the files are to be distributed to people,
>>>
>> But what if you move the files around yourself? What if you want  
>> to edit it somewhere else? I don't think doing it centralized is a  
>> good idea, but let's see what Allan says about it :-).
>>
>
> It's going to be de-centralized, and it's going to use filesystem  
> metadata. It's just that thre was no way to do that before Tiger,  
> ignoring here deprecated resource forks.
>

Does that mean it's coming?
I tried project thing, but the windows don't seem to keep their  
individual positions onscreen when I "open in new window". Also,  
whether I have soft wrap on or off does not get saved either. Now,  
since Sune Foldager actually asked if this behaviour is desirable, I  
should perhaps try to motivate it a bit.
I have many different applications (obviously), and all apps work a  
bit different. I don't want to learn a file navigator for each and  
every application that I use. Instead, I have the Finder which is my  
universal file handling utility. Now the Finder should focus on  
handling my files, while different applications focus on using those  
files. I can appreciate the need for project managment and such  
things as special power tools and I might even start to use them  
someday, but for now I like the finder. Thus; I don't care for the  
project manager at all.
Why do I want windows to be in the same state all the time? Well it's  
like leaving a sheet of paper. I put stuff in different places, and  
when I return I expect them to be there, call me anal (I hope that  
means "overly tidy" in English as well) but I get very frustrated  
when someone opens my closed door, says something and then goes away  
without closing it (i.e returning it to the state it was before; my  
prefered state).
Now for my closing argument, which will also dismiss tabs (again, I  
have used them and liked them, and many people seem to love them, I'm  
just saying I don't use tabs much on os x). Say I have two files, I  
edit one but want to read stuff from the other, I align them next to  
each other so I can do this. This is what a big screen is for, and  
everybody seems to like big screen, or even two screens! Yet, when I  
close one window or quit TextMate, I won't find my window in the same  
spot I left it, meannig I might have to realign it again in order to  
get it where I wanted it. Besides, the F10-expose function does not  
work with tabs (although I saw some app that actually "split" the  
tabs up in individual windows during expose, very nice). There is  
also the visual recognition of a file, I know where I am also because  
I know where that window is on my screen. Now this may sound rather  
stupid but it's actually true, my eyes flicker around the screen  
focusing on the area I know I'm at. For instance, my javascript files  
are up on the right, my php files more in the center etc ...  
(speaking about my finder windows here)
There is a wonderful article on this over at ars technica at
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/finder.ars

So, bottom line is, I like to navigate my files with the finder, I  
like to find things they way I left them.

Now I don't want to sound grumpy, I just try to motivate my needs and  
hope that in the future windows will stay as I left them ... any  
comments?

Andreas