Window mismanagement page 4

The first myth of window management is that it exists…

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I wanted to add a Windows network share to my login items on Mac OS X, so I open the Accounts settings and click the button to add a new log-in item. A sheet appears for me to navigate to the item of my choice. I need to authorise my access to this mount, so I click connect:

With the big fuss made over sheets in Mac OS X, how comes clicking Connect opens a dialog box? Have Apple still not managed to build a visual process collaboration model into Mac OS X even in Tiger? Supposing we now hit F11 (in my case, mouse button 4) to view all windows:

As you can see, the window manager cannot decide whether a window and its sheet are related or not, and the dialog box of course is no-where to be found. You are permitted to select the the parent window if you so choose, which causes the sheet to disappear:

But the dialog box comes back. That is because it simply won’t go away no matter what application you are in:

This is by far not the only problem with the connection process (such as not actually ever connecting) but it shows a disturbing lack of clarity in the design of Apple’s interface model. After all the years of seeing equally ridiculous problems with the Windows interface, one should be able to expect far more from Apple.

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