Re: [gedit-list] RFE: remove the tab when viewing a single file

["Kevin Kubasik" <kevin kubasik net>]

Just so the silent majority isn't silent, I'm a fan of the MDI interface.

Cheers,
Kevin Kubasik

On 4/6/06, Paolo Maggi <paolo maggi gmail com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > Not sure if this issue has been discussed already,
> > so I'll go ahead and bring it up for discussion.
>
> Yes, this has been already discussed several times.
>
> >
> > Gedit is a great editor, but unfortunately from my POV
> > suffers from a big usability problem: it _forces_ the
> > MDI on the user.
>
> Well, this is true for a simple reason... gedit _IS_ a MDI editor.
>
> > Not sure if this is HIG compliant, but
> > being the default GNOME editor makes it a big issue.
> >
> > First, the tab is simply redundant and wastes precious
> > vertical space when only one file is opened. At the
> > very least we should not have it there in that case.
>
> It is not redundant, if we remove the tab you will have no way for
> example to know the mime-type of the file or the complete path.
>
> >
> > Second, I think that the MDI interface is simply wrong
> > for casual usage.
>
> Why? People always says "MDI is wrong"... but no one is able to explain
> me why.
> It is not a dogma... there should be a reason.
>
> >  I understand that gedit tries to be
> > more than notepad, and this is great, but it is the
> > default editor in GNOME, and it must by _default_ cater
> > to the simple case.
>
> Why do you think gedit is not catering with the simple case by default?
> You start gedit, you edit your document, press Save and Close gedit...
> this is the simplest case I can think to... gedit is working very well
> in this case and I don't see why having a "tab" is breaking the
> simplicity.
>
> >  Advanced users that want MDI for
> > development purposes can easily change the default.
> >
> > Please consider getting rid of the tab in the default
> > behavior. It would make gedit more generally useful
> > outside the highly specialized development environment.
>
> Again... why?
>
> I'm not saying gedit is perfect, gedit _has_ problems. We know some of
> them and probably we don't know other ones.
> But, really, being a MDI editor is not one of its problems.
>
> If you want to know which is, in my opinion, the biggest usability
> problem we have in the scenario you described, I can say: too long
> startup time.
>
> Sorry, if I has been a bit rude in this mail... but it is so early in
> the morning :)
>
> I really would like to know "why" you people thinks being a MDI editor
> is a so big usability problem. All my "whys" are not rhetoric questions.
>
> Thanks,
> Paolo
>
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>


--
Cheers,
Kevin Kubasik
http://blog.kubasik.net/