Re: Tabbed Usage

[Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk>]

On Sun, 2007-04-15 at 01:18 -0500, Patrick Hallinan wrote:
> On 4/14/07, Lars Clausen <lars raeder dk> wrote:
>         On Fri, 2007-04-13 at 14:11 -0500, Patrick Hallinan wrote:
>         > Lars said:
>         >
>         > >> + Tabbed organisation of open diagrams (Like Firefox's
>         pages) and the
>         > >> toolbox window all being in one consolidated environment.
>         If this is 
>         > >> possible already can you please explain, how can I do
>         this?
>         >
>         >
>         > > That is not currently possible, I'm afraid.  I'm loath to
>         try to implement
>         > > such a thing myself, so it'll have to be based on what GTK
>         offers.  What 
>         > > I'd like is something like KDE's draggable subwindows, but
>         possibly a
>         >
>         > > GtkNoteBook and the toolbox together in a window would be
>         an alternative.
>         > > I'd like it to be user configurable in some other way than
>         through 
>         > > preferences, but that may be a little much.  Maybe the
>         preferences setting
>         >
>         > > should be "Gimp-like UI" (menu on right mouse, loose
>         windows) vs.
>         > > non-Gimp-like (menubar, one window with tabs). 
>         >
>         > I was happy to find this.  I was thinking of something along
>         these
>         > lines.  I just started looking at the code.  If someone
>         could suggest
>         > an approach I could start working on this.  I was thinking
>         of starting 
>         > with a simple glade project and trying to make the Dia
>         pieces loadable
>         > widgets but maybe it makes more sense to create an alternate
>         UI that's
>         > integrated in the project.
>         
>         Please don't use Glade.  The one piece of Glade-based UI we
>         have is an 
>         unmaintainable mess.  Besides, this functionality will be
>         spread out
>         over the program to a large degree.
>         
>         > It looks like I would start hacking in app_init():
>         >
>         > void app_init(int argc, char** argv) { 
>         > /* ... */
>         >
>         >   prefs_init();
>         >
>         >   if (dia_is_interactive) {
>         >     if( dia_gimp_like_ui_interface_selected )
>         >
>         >       init_gimp_like_ui();
>         >     else
>         >       init_non_gimp_like_ui(); 
>         >
>         >
>         > Of course I don't have a clue about what kind of changes
>         this would entail.
>         
>         We already have a prefs setting use_menu_bar that determines
>         if the
>         diagram window is in the right mouse button or a regular menu
>         bar.  I 
>         suggest you start by encapsulating that in a function
>         gimp_like_ui(), so
>         it is isolated.  Then you'll also see where it gets used.
>         
>         The current use_menu_bar setting is for new views;
>         gimp/no-gimp UI
>         should be per-invocation, so for consistency new views should
>         get the 
>         menu bar setting from startup, not from the newest
>         preferences, which
>         may have changed; the gimp_like_ui() function can hide that
>         difference.
>         At the same time, the preference should move away from the new
>         view
>         section in preferences.
>         
>         At that point, new functionality would be easy to add, that's
>         where your
>         above if-sentence comes in.  interface.c has most of the
>         window setup
>         stuff.  Are you planning to do some kind of "docking" like
>         newer gimp 
>         versions, where things like layers dialog can fit in the same
>         window as
>         the toolbox?
>
> I guess I was thinking of expanding the toolbox window to encompass a
> notebook for diagram windows and have the diagram window menu
> integrated with the toolbox menu.  I spent a few hours today just
> poking through the code.  I think I want to build out some
> documentation of the current architecture/object interactions before I
> do much else.  I wasn't thinking at all about "docked" components.
> Just about an integrated interface that contained all the pieces in a
> single window.  

That'd probably be easier.  What were you thinking of doing for the
layers dialog?

Hadn't thought about the two sets of menus.  I guess we'd need a third
"File" menu that's a combination of the two current ones.  Fortunately,
that should be easy with GtkAction.

> I don't understand why you would want the use_menubar preference to be
> locked in at startup.  It seems like something that would not be hard
> to change even in a window that was already up.  

When it changes to be gimplike_ui, changing it on the fly would mean
assembling/disassembling the windows, changing the menubars and other
stuff.  I'd rather have working code that can only change at startup
than unfinished/messy code that can change any time.  Once we've ironed
out how the two interfaces differ and have that working, we can look
into changing on the fly.  

-Lars