[2823] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Reverse stacking zephyr
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg Hudson)
Tue Jul 17 10:14:27 2001
Message-Id: <200107171414.KAA17231@egyptian-gods.MIT.EDU>
To: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
cc: release-team@MIT.EDU, aui@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 17 Jul 2001 03:35:07 EDT."
<200107170735.DAA01880@byte-me.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 10:14:17 -0400
From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
I think I am not going to apply the reverse stacking patch. Here is
why:
You can think of a service like zephyr as being used in two ways: for
"instant messaging" and for "chatting" (which isn't intended to be a
stigma; -i 6.170 and -c help fall in that category just as much as
social uses). For the latter use, reverse stacking is generally
preferrable, but for the former use, normal stacking is generally
better because it's less likely that new messages will go unnoticed.
Probably, most users of Zephyr are in the "instant messaging" mode and
not in the "chatting" mode. That doesn't mean there aren't a sizeable
number of people who use it in chatting mode, including perhaps the
majority of course 6 students at various points in their tenure, but
it's probably not a majority of the institute.
So, I come out on the side of leaving the default as it is.
Incidentally, we might want to reconsider making zwgc windows
'(frame-type . border-only) as we do now. Moving zephyrgrams around
is important functionality, and we've pretty much taken it away from
the user in the name of making zephyrgrams not take up as much
space--again, something which is desirable for chatty usage but not so
important for instant message usage.
