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0. Introduction
 |  Apple Lisa 1 |
The LISA User Interface has two main goals, simplicity and integration. We want
LISA to be easy to learn and easy to use, so we try to do things in a simple
and intuitive manner and to build on concepts already familiar to LISA users.
An integrated system with a consistent user interface is easier to learn and to
use. An integrated system is also more powerful than a group of separate programs
that don’t interact.
This LISA User Interface Standards Document presents the external view of what
LISA looks like to the user, and expresses a set of guidelines that the LISA
development team will use in an effort to achieve simplicity and integration.
We want all Apple-supplied applications to have the same “feel” to the
user, so that learning is minimized when going from application to application.
Where possible, the same operation in two programs should be done in the same
way and behave the same to the user. A given user action should have a consistent
meaning throughout the system. Principles used in constructing system features
should be extensible to similar occasions, in order to minimize user frustration.
It is hoped that outside vendors will find it to their advantage to use these
conventions as well.
1. Display
 | | Apple Lisa 2 |
The display is a black-and-white bit-mapped CRT having 360 scan lines of 720
dots each, with the screen’s surface perpendicular to the surface on which
the computer sits. Normal presentation of graphics or text consists of black
lines or characters on a white background. The screen image has a 3:4 aspect
ratio (long axis horizontal) and is physically located above a movable keyboard.
2. Mouse and cursor
Pointing to things on the screen is done with a mouse. The mouse is a small,
hand-sized object which is free to be rolled on a flat, horizontal surface. Motion
of the mouse to right or left moves a cursor on the screen to right or left
respectively. Moving the mouse away from the user moves the cursor upward, and
moving the mouse toward the user moves the cursor downward. When cursor reaches the
edge of the screen it remains pinned to the edge (although it may move along the
edge) until the appropriate component of the mouse’s motion is reversed,
at which moment the cursor begins to move again.
The cursor may take on different shapes to indicate its current function. For
example, when in text it looks like a thin vertical stem with two leaves growing
from the top and bottom (see the illustrations). When in the Menu Bar, its shape
is the outline of an apple. On the desk it is a black arrow pointing upward and to
the left. Its shape is chosen by the implementor of each application package –
he or she should choose an existing shape if appropriate.
The mouse incorporates a button on its top surface that allows the user to signal
a particular position on the screen to the computer, although the system is always
aware of the position indicated by the mouse. When the button is up, motion of the
mouse causes cursor motion and may change the shape of the cursor, but no other
changes occur to anything on the screen as a result of the motion.
3. Pointing, clicking, and dragging with the mouse
As the mouse is moved on the table, a cursor on the screen tracks its motion.
When the mouse’s button is pressed we are said to point to something on
the screen at the cursor’s current position. If, while pointing and keeping
the button depressed, we move the mouse, we are said to drag it. If we press and
then release the button without moving the mouse, we are said to click the
mouse. If the mouse is clicked twice within 1/2 second, we call that a double click.
4. Keyboard
 | | The keyboard |
LISA’s keyboard is a detachable, non-encoded, n-key rollover keyboard whose
styling is based on office typewriter layout. It includes a numeric keypad on
the right. Besides the printing characters and the usual space bar, TAB key,
and RETURN key, there are several special keys: two keys, one to each side of the
space bar marked with a monochromatic version of the company logo (called the “Apple
keys”); a CODE key; a CLEAR key (on the numeric pad) and a BACKSPACE key.
This User Interface Standards Document describes an interface compatible with
the existing LISA keyboard hardware without modification.
5. Memory
A LISA computer will have at least 128 Kbytes of main memory, of which 32K is dedicated
to the display. Thus system overhead, fonts, memory resident program segments, and
memory resident data cannot require more than 96 Kbytes of storage.
6. Mass memory
The user interface is transparent with respect to the kind and amounts of mass
storage provided. All that is assumed here is that there is enough to implement the
interface described and to support applications using the interface. The minimum
LISA will include two high density mini-floppies; an optional hard disk may be
available later.
7. Initialization
The user is not required to do any initialization when the computer is turned on.
There is no sign-on unless protected things will be used. When first turned on,
after inserting the Apple-supplied diskettes, LISA comes up executing a program (i.e.
displays a collection of folders) to teach the use of the mouse, and possibly other
system features.
8. In everyday operation
Before turning off LISA, the user runs a cleanup program which brings each folder to
a clean stopping point and then informs the user that power may be removed. When
LISA is turned on again with the same diskettes in place, the display will be restored
to its previous state. Each user may easily customize her LISA by leaving commonly
used objects in convenient places on the screen.
9. What the screen looks like
Across the full width of the top of the screen there is always a thin band of white
with a collection of menu titles in it; it is called the Menu Bar and is described
in section 24.
The rest of the screen is gray and represents a desktop. Documents on that desk are
presented in images that look much like traditional file folders. Many of these
folders may sit on the desk at the same time, they may overlap, and they may be
moved about on the desk, discarded, or filed away in a filing cabinet.
10. Folders
Each folder shows a view of a single document, and provides a structure for
manipulating the view of that document by scrolling, moving, growing, and closing the
folder down to a tab.
A folder may be used to group together a collection of related documents to be
filed away and retrieved together. The filing system is still in design, and
the grouping mechanism will be determined by it. Two possibilities are a folder
containing other closed folders (only tabs visible), or a folder with a table
of contents to select which document is currently visible. In any case, each
folder only shows one document at any time.
11. Basic folder appearance
A folder is drawn as a white rectangle (filled in by the application) with a thin
(one pixel) black border. Every folder has a tab, which looks like a tab on
a standard manilla folder. The tab is always above the upper left corner of the
folder. It is called the title tab.
The rectangular portion of the folder that holds the folder’s contents is called
the body of the folder.
12. Open and closed folders
Each folder may be either open, (its body and tab both visible), or closed, (only its
title tab visible). Each folder remembers two locations on the screen, one where
it resides when open and one for when it is closed. If a folder is open, double-click
the mouse button on its title tab to close it and move it to its closed location.
If a folder is closed, double-click the tab to open it and restore it to its open
position and size.
13. The system font
The text in title tabs, menu titles, and menu items is usually written in the
standard system font. This font is not normally available to the user. It will
also be used in the dialog box for the system side of user-system dialogs, to
make it plain who said what.
14. The active folder
One folder is distinguished by its title tab being drawn in a thicker line, and
by having two light gray scroll bars on its right and bottom edges. This is the
active folder. It is the only folder whose contents may be directly modified by the
user. Passive folders may be modified by the system, or as a consequence of actions
performed by the user on the active folder.
15. Making a folder active
Pressing the mouse button while pointing anywhere on a passive folder makes that one
the active folder, and the previously active folder becomes passive. A folder may
also be made active or passive by an application. If this might happen when the
user is not expecting it or may not be looking at the screen, a beep should occur
as notification.
Even a closed folder can be made the active folder. Since its body is not
visible no scrollbars appear; only its thickened tab distinguishes it as the
active folder.
16. Moving a folder
An open folder may be moved by placing the cursor on its title tab, and then
pressing and holding down the mouse button while moving the cursor. A flickering
outline of the entire folder will track the cursor. Releasing the mouse button
moves the folder instantaneously to the new position indicated by the flickering
outline.
A closed folder may also be moved by dragging its title tab. The process is the
same as for an open folder except that no flickering outline is given and
instead of the jump at the end, the whole tab is dragged along continuously with
the cursor until the button is released.
The open and closed locations of a folder are independent. Dragging a closed
folder changes only its closed position, and dragging an open folder changes only
its open position.
Since pressing the mouse button on any part of a folder makes it the active
folder, moving a folder leaves it active and on top of any other folders that
it might overlap.
17. Growing the active folder
The grow icon, located just beyond the right bottom corner of the active folder,
(where the scrollbars intersect), is used to change the size of the active
folder. (See illustrations.)
If you press the mouse button with the cursor in the grow icon, a flickering outline
of the folder will appear and its lower right corner will follow the cursor as
long as the button is held down. When you release the button, the application will
“resize” the folder, that is, adjust its lower right hand corner
at a position at (or close to) the lower right hand corner of the flickering
outline. The application can restrict the minimum and maximum dimensions of the folder.
When a folder is grown (either smaller or larger) the size of the contents
remains unchanged, it is just that you can see more or less of them. The
contents are clipped to the folder’s outline. If the contents are smaller
than the folder, they will be in the upper left corner with a very light gray
filling out to the edges of the folder.
18. Scrolling
The folder presents a view of a document. If the document is too big to be
entirely visible in that view, the scrolling bars can be used to change which
portion is visible.
The active folder is distinguished by two scrollbars, a vertical scrollbar along
the right edge of the folder, and a horizontal scrollbar along the bottom. (See
the illustrations).
If the vertical extent of the document is entirely visible in the active folder,
then the vertical scroll bar will contain only light gray. Otherwise, it may
contain small white boxes at the top and bottom with up and down arrows for
continuous scrolling. If the scrollbar is big enough, a small white box will
be visible to indicate the relative position being viewed in the document.
The appearance and usage of the horizontal scrolling bar are analogous to the vertical one.
19. How to scroll
Continuous scrolling is accomplished by pressing and holding the mouse button
while the cursor points to the appropriate arrow. While the button is pressed,
the arrow fills in solid black and the document scrolls. Once scrolling is
started, only releasing the button will stop it – the position of the
cursor doesn’t matter. There is a maximum scrolling rate specified in
the user profile. The application should aim to scroll as rapidly and smoothly as
possible within that constraint.
Page-at-a-time (exactly one folder-capacity worth) scrolling is accomplished by
pressing and holding the mouse in the gray area between the appropriate arrow
and the position indicator. A single click and release simply flips one
folderful. If you press and hold the button, the following process is repeated:
flip one page, update the position indicator, delay if necessary in order to
keep below a maximum scrolling rate. The process stops repeating when either the
button is released or the position indicator reaches the cursor position. Thus,
the cursor position specifies the furthest that the pages can flip.
The cursor may be placed in the position indicator, and used to drag the position
indicator up and down. As long as the mouse button is pressed, the mouse will
control the box. The box will pin at the top and bottom of the scrolling bar.
Moving left or right out of the bar several inches returns the position indicator to
its original position. When the button is released, the document will scroll all
at once to the indicated place in the document. No intervening views are shown.
Thus the scrolling bar both indicates, relatively, where you are in a document,
as well as allowing you to position yourself slowly or quickly to any point in
the document.
20. Split views
Sometimes it is useful for a folder’s view of a document to be split so
that two different parts of the same document can be seen at once. In these cases, a
folder may be split vertically or horizontally. For example, the word processor
allows horizontal splits with the vertical scrollbar also split so that the two
views may be independently scrolled vertically, but synchronously scrolled
horizontally. Sometimes the two views will overlap and the same part
of the document be visible two places. The border between split views may
be adjusted by dragging the icon which appears between the two halves of the
split scrollbar.
21. The selection
Each document has a selection which marks visually the place in the document
where you are currently working. Most operations are done by first specifying a
selection to operate on, then choosing a menu item to operate on that
selection. The selection in the active folder is called the active selection.
The selection may be a single pixel, a line, or any larger portion of the screen.
The limits of its extent are controlled by the application. In some applications,
a very small selection is required to be marked. When the selection is very small,
it may blink to make it more visible.
In text, the selection is usually a contiguous span of characters highlighted in
inverse video. When it contains no characters, it appears as a blinking vertical
line which we sometimes call the caret.
In graphics the selection will probably be highlighted by the “marching ants”
technique used in the forms editor.
When a document is passive, its selection becomes only dimly highlighted, such
as characters on a gray background or halted “ants”. Blinking selections
stop blinking in a passive document. When the document is once again made
active, its selection is restored to full highlighting.
22. Visibility of operations on selections
When an operation (such as replacement) is performed on a selection not even partly
visible in the folder, the active folder is automatically scrolled so that at
least part of the selection is visible in the folder. The scrolling is performed
before the operation is executed.
23. Marking a selection
A selection in the active folder is defined and marked by pointing and dragging
with the mouse. As the mouse is dragged, the size of selection increases or
decreases. This is visible to the user, who sees the selection’s highlighting
expanding or shrinking as the mouse is moved about.
There are several special ways to make a selection other than simply dragging
from one end to the other. The first of these is double- and triple-clicking to
select larger entitles.
Double clicking in text (releasing the button and pressing again within 1/2
second) selects the entire word surrounding the position of the initial click and
extends the selection by words while dragging. Punctuation and spacing are taken a
character at a time when extending by words.
Triple clicking in text selects the entire paragraph surrounding the initial
position and extends by paragraphs.
More than three clicks separated by less than 1/2 second are interpreted as three clicks.
In a folder which presents a split view of a document, dragging from one view pane
into another will extend the selection to the portion of the document visible in
the second view pane.
If you start a selection and then drag outside the entire folder while still
holding the mouse button down, the document in the folder will scroll to show
more. When the other end is in view, move the cursor back into the folder to
stop scrolling and release the button to complete the selection.
If a selection is too long for the above methods to be practical, or if an
incorrect selection is made and the user wants to adjust it without starting all
over, then “SHIFT-BUTTON” may be used. If either SHIFT key on the
keyboard is being held down when the mouse button is pressed, then instead of
starting a new selection, an endpoint of the selection (the one on the same side
of the initial “anchor” point of the selection as the cursor is) is
adjusted just as if the button were already down during a normal selection that
started on the other end.
24. The menu bar
Across the full width of the top of the screen there is always a thin band of
white called the menu bar. It is tall enough for one line of characters, and
displays the titles of a set of menus which currently make sense. Most of the
menus operate on the selection in the active folder. Some may operate on the
active folder as a whole; or on a group of related folders, or even on the
whole LISA system. The menu bar is the main means by which a user tells LISA what
to do.
The menu bar contains a number of words, each of which is the title of a
“pull-down” menu. If the cursor is moved with the button up to one
of the menu titles, the cursor shape changes to an apple. If the mouse button
is pressed, the menu title becomes highlighted in inverse and the associated
menu pops out, hanging down below the menu bar.
If you drag the cursor across the menu bar while holding down the button, each
menu will pop out in succession and you will be able to see all the menu
items that are currently available to you.
Each menu is a list of choices among a collection of commands, objects or other
menus. The items in a menu may be arranged linearly, or in an array, and may
be textual, graphical or even dynamic.
Menu choices are directives, not state indicators (e.g. Turn Printer On rather
than Printer Off). However, often the user can tell what states (if any) are in
effect (see below).
25. Making a menu choice
If you drag down into the menu, the first menu item becomes highlighted. As long
as you are pointing inside the menu, the menu item nearest the cursor will be
highlighted. To select a menu item, drag down until that item is highlighted, then
release the button to indicate your choice and initiate the action. The menu
disappears immediately, but the menu title remains highlighted until
the action has been completed.
If you move outside the menu rectangle before releasing the button, none of the
menu items will be selected. The menu remains visible until the button is
released or the cursor is moved over another menu title in the menu bar.
26. Menu items that do nothing
When an application knows that a menu item would have no effect, it may dimly
highlight that item. Such an item can be invoked anyway, if the user wishes. Note
that when the command is one that changes a state (e.g., Bold or Turn Printer On),
the dim highlighting also provides feedback to the user about the current state.
27. Contents of the menu bar and of the menus
The list of menu titles in the menu bar and the contents of those menus will
change as a function of the active folder and the selection in that folder. Submenu
titles may also be brought up by making a selection in one of these main menus.
When submenus are used, they should appear toward the right in the menu bar and
should not cause any of the main menus to disappear. Thus in a hierarchical menu,
the user can always get to a given menu item by the main menu; sometimes she
can take a shortcut if the submenu is already in the menubar.
28. Making menu choices from the keyboard
To increase the speed with which menu choices can be made in keyboard-intensive
applications, a limited number of menu items may be chosen directly from the
keyboard, without using the mouse.
To invoke a menu choice from the keyboard, hold down either APPLE key while
pressing another key that is associated with that choice. Only commands in menus
whose titles are currently in the menu bar can be invoked in this way. If no command
in the menu bar is associated with the key, a beep is sounded.
The user learns the keys that invoke menu commands during normal system use because
each menu item that can be invoked from the keyboard is tagged with an apple symbol
and the legend of the associated key. To find out all the commands accessible
from the keyboard, bring up each menu by dragging across the menu bar; each menu
item that is tagged with an apple and keycap legend is also available from the
keyboard.
There are eight APPLE key combinations that are universally associated with certain
common commands:
| APPLE-Z: Cut | APPLE-B: Bold |
| APPLE-X: Paste | APPLE-I: Italic |
| APPLE-C: Copy | APPLE-_: Underline |
| APPLE-U: Undo | APPLE-N: Normal |
The other printing keys can be associated with different commands in different
folders, but any one key must have only one meaning within one folder. Consistency
is encouraged between folders of an application, that is, if the same command
name appears in two folders of the same application, then the same keystroke
should invoke them. Furthermore, applications should avoid assigning the same
keystroke to different commands in different folders when a mistake by the user
would be dangerous or even likely.
29. The dialog box
Sometimes just choosing a menu item isn’t enough. When a further parameter needs
to be typed in, a white band the full width of the screen and of variable height
extends down below the menu bar, prompts for the parameter, and provides a place
for it to be echoed as it is typed. This box is called the Dialog Box, and it is
a little akin to a system console terminal.
The Dialog Box is also provides a place for the system or an application to
put up prompts, interactive dialog, error messages, etc. without writing all
over the user’s document or changing the active folder. Applications may
grow and shrink the dialog box vertically as needed, or just leave it up as
a fixed size. The Dialog Box, unlike the Menu Bar, may be overlapped by
a folder; if the dialog box obscures a folder, pressing the mouse button in that
folder will bring it to the top. Pressing inside the Dialog Box when it is
obscured will bring it back to the top without changing the active folder. When
necessary, an application may even put a scroll bar on the dialog box.
30. Text editing philosophy
The User Interface text editing features are available across all applications when
text is being typed. Each application may augment these with special editing
functions for its own objects. The word processor, of course, is a superset of
this text editing equipment.
To avoid unnecessary modes, commands are postfix rather than prefix. Some
object is selected, and then an action on that object is specified. This allows
the user time to check that the object has been selected correctly. It avoids
modes, since the user may start a new task by making a new selection without
having to terminate or cancel anything explicitly.
31. Typing printing characters
When a character is typed, the current selection is deleted from the document
and the character replaces it. If there is no active folder, and thus no
current selection, or if the current selection cannot be replaced by text (as in
an all-graphics application with no captions), then a beep is sounded when
typing is attempted.
If typing makes the caret go beyond the folder edge, the document will be
scrolled back so the caret is visible.
When the user starts to type, the caret stops blinking. When the user stops
typing and the system has caught up, the caret starts blinking again.
32. Keys that alter the meanings of other keys
The SHIFT, ALPHA LOCK, APPLE, and CODE keys are neither command keys nor
printing character keys. When any other key is pressed, its meaning hinges partially
on what combination of those four keys is currently depressed.
33. SHIFT
On keys with two legends on top, SHIFT designates the upper legend instead of
the usual lower legend.
On alphabetic keys, SHIFT designates upper case instead of the usual lower case.
On the numeric keypad, SHIFT has no effect.
SHIFT also modifies the meaning of BACKSPACE and the mouse button, as explained
elsewhere in this document.
34. ALPHA LOCK
ALPHA LOCK physically locks down when pressed from the up position, and returns
to the up position when pressed again. It designates upper case on
alphabetic keys, but has no effect on other keys.
35. APPLE KEY
APPLE makes the key pressed with it invoke the command (if any) that is
associated with that key in the menus of the menu bar. It beeps if no
command is associated with that key.
APPLE also modifies the meaning of BACKSPACE, as explained below.
36. CODE
CODE pressed with a key looks up that key in the abbreviation folder and
acts as if the expansion of that abbreviation were pasted from the Scrap (see
Section 12). For unformatted text, it is the same as typing that text in full.
Certain CODE combinations are reserved, namely:
| CODE - | ... | \ |
| CODE = | ... | ~ |
| CODE [ | ... | { |
| CODE ] | ... | } |
| CODE ; | ... | | |
| CODE ’ | ... | ` |
37. Repeating keys
All keys except for the shift, code, apple, and apple-shifted keys repeat with
a certain frequency starting after a certain time delay and stopping when
the key is released. The repeat frequency and delay are specified in the
User Profile. The repeat frequency of the backspace key may be specified
separately from the other keys.
38. Type ahead
All characters including commands invoked with the Apple key may be typed ahead.
The initial press of a key always types ahead, but auto repeat characters will
not be typed ahead. Mouse button-ahead is normally disabled, but may be turned
on by the User Profile.
When an application detects a keyboard error, it may beep, delay a short time,
then flush the type ahead buffer.
The length of the type-ahead buffer is sufficient to hold a line of text.
39. BACKSPACE
BACKSPACE is not a character, but an editing command executed whenever a
certain key is pressed. If the selection contains characters, BACKSPACE does
nothing. If the selection is just a caret, BACKSPACE deletes the character to
the left of the caret and places it in the backspace buffer.
APPLE-BACKSPACE, means “backword”, that is, it deletes characters to
the left of the caret and places them in the backspace buffer until the
first character of a word has been deleted.
40. The BACKSPACE buffer
This is a LIFO stack in which characters backspaced over are stored, and from
which they may be retrieved a character at a time by pressing SHIFT-BACKSPACE
(un-backspace) or a word at a time by pressing APPLE-SHIFT-BACKSPACE (un-backword).
This buffer is cleared when the mouse button is pressed or a key other than
BACKSPACE or its shifts is typed.
41. TAB
TAB is a character. In the word processor TAB is used to advance to the next
tab stop, (See the Word Processor ERS [Engineering Requirements Specification]
for details). Within a field of
a form TAB means to accept the entire field as it is, check the field, and if
the edit check passes, advance to the next field. Shift-TAB does the same
except advancing to the previous field after accepting the entry.
If the edit check fails, a beep is sounded and the typeahead buffer is flushed.
If the edit check passes, the field is accepted by the form, and the next field
is automatically selected in its entirety.
42. RETURN
RETURN is a character. It may be part of a search pattern, for example, which
is not true of BACKSPACE. In the word processor, RETURN is used to delimit a
paragraph. When RETURN is typed, the selection is deleted, and a mandatory line
break inserted.
RETURN has a somewhat different meaning within a field of a form. If the entire
field is selected, RETURN means the same as tab. If the selection is anywhere
in a single line field, RETURN means the same as tab. If the selection is just a
caret and is at the end of the last line of a field, RETURN means the same as
tab. Otherwise if the selection is in a multi-line field, RETURN deletes the
selection and inserts a line break. If the additional line of text doesn’t
fit within the field, RETURN will just beep.
Shift-RETURN acts the same as RETURN.
43. The Edit menu
One menu almost always available in the menu bar is the Edit menu. It contains
the basic editing commands Cut, Paste and Copy, and the general command Undo.
It may also contain Bold, Italic, Underline, and Normal. Each of these commands
may be invoked in the normal way with the mouse, or from the keyboard via their
apple key shortcuts.
44. Cut
Choosing the Cut command from the Edit menu places the current selection in the
scrap folder, and deletes it from the active folder.
An attempt to Cut when the selection contains no characters makes no change to
the document or to the scrap folder. The user is warned that Cut will not work
when the selection contains no characters since the menu item is dimly highlighted
at those times.
If there was no scrap folder when Cut is first executed, one is automatically
created and placed on the desk as a closed folder.
If there is some text in the scrap folder and a new selection is cut from
a document (not necessarily from the same document or folder as the previous
cut), the old scrap text is lost (unless an Undo is the very next command) and
the material just cut becomes the contents of the scrap folder.
When a selection is cut, the remaining text in the document (if any) is “pulled
in” following the normal word-wrap rules. If words or sentences are cut,
and the wrong number of spaces remain for proper typography, the system fixes things
up automatically.
Not all portions of all documents are cuttable, e.g. protected portions of
forms. In first release, at least, the entire Scrap Folder is not only read only, but
it is also impossible to make selections in it.
45. Paste
This command replaces the active selection with the contents of the scrap folder.
The contents of the scrap folder may be graphical or textual, however if the
type of material does not correspond with what is allowed by the application, a
warning sounds, and the Paste is not made. In many applications an explanation will
appear in the Dialog Box.
After a paste of textual material, the selection is a caret located immediately
after the material that was pasted into the document. If words or sentences are
pasted, then spacing around the pasted text is made typographically correct.
When a Paste is done, the material in the scrap folder is unaltered. Repeated Pastes
done without an intervening cut result in a number of copies of the material in
the scrap folder being made.
46. Copy
The Copy command places a copy of the selection in the scrap folder just as
with Cut: in fact everything is the same except that the selection is not
changed or deleted.
47. Undo
The Undo command undoes the last command you issued. Undo is a command, thus a
second Undo undoes the first Undo. Undo applies to all edit menu commands, and
in later releases it will apply to more and more commands until eventually it
will apply to all.
Simply changing what is selected does not count as a command. Therefore,
after a command is invoked, the user can Undo until another command is invoked.
A series of keystrokes on the keyboard including printing characters, RETURN,
TAB, all CODE-shifted characters, and all variations of BACKSPACE, with no
intervening changes of selection and no command invocations, is considered a
single command for Undo purposes. For example, if a word is selected, and the
user types over it (even if he types more backspaces than characters) and then
he invokes Undo in that folder, then the text is restored to its condition
before the first character as typed, and the original word is again selected.
48. Utility documents and folders
Certain documents are created by the system and are permanently in existence.
49. The Scrap
The Scrap Folder is used for CUT-PASTE and COPY-PASTE operations. See Section 12.
50. The Abbreviation Folder
The Abbreviation Folder contains a table of abbreviations accessible with the CODE
key. When the code key is held down and another key is typed, the entry for that
key in the Abbreviations Folder is pasted in to replace the active selection.
Entries in the Abbreviation Folder may be edited so the user can use abbreviations
for common phrases, inside address, etc. For first release, the abbreviations might
only be textual, but eventually they should include graphics too as in a
logo or signature.
51. The user profile folder
This folder has a form for specifying certain user-settable options. It provides
defaults appropriate for novices. In first release, there may not be a
User Profile Folder, in which case the defaults apply to every user.
Bill Atkinson, project leader
Quick overview of major changes since August 22 [1980]:
- Menu at top of screen.
- Provision for Dialog Box.
- Back to Open/Closed folders with double click to change. No desk drawer.
- Specification of hierarchical menus (submenus).
- Specification of the Enter function in terms of tab and return.
- Grow icon in lower right corner of folder, vertical scroll bar moved to right.
Scroll bars required on active folder.
- Provision for split views.
- Help facility deleted.
Also several minor changes and many clarifications.
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