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Window VS Palette
Authored by: elmimmo on May 05, '05 03:25:30AM

As you pointed out the Inspector palette and the Get Info window report the same information.

The difference though, is subtle: the Inspector is a palette, and hence
- Will stay on top of all other Windows,
- Does not automatically gain mouse focus (the active window will still be the one you summoned the Inspector from).
- Does not react to the Close Window keyboard shortcut Command + W (since it is not a window, it's a palette). You dismiss it by pressing Option + Command + I again. In fact, while this seems the correct behaviour, if you are not aware that you are watching the Inspector instead of the Get Info/Summary window, you might close the window that encloses the item that your are "inspecting". This happens to me repeatedly and it is quite frustrating.
- Only one active inspector can be displayed, and hence, dynamically updates its contents as your selection changes.
- It will fade out when Expose is on.

My only problem with it is that, once it has gained mouse focus by the user clicking on it, it should have a way to escape from it and give the focus back to the workspace. In other apps (such as Photoshop) that also have textfields and other UI elements that need to retain focus until the user says so, it usually implies pressing Enter. It does not work in the Inspector, though, and I have found no way to take the focus away from it but by dismissing the palette altogether. In my opinion, this counts as a bug.



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