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

[Ralph Aichinger <ralph mail pangea at>]

Paolo Maggi schrieb:

> Well, this is true for a simple reason... gedit _IS_ a MDI editor.

But why can't it simply be both MDI and SDI, like Epiphany is both?


> 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.

How so? What can be displayed in the tab that cannot be displayed
in the window title or somewhere else, like in the status bar?

> 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.

To me it is simply the following reason: To organise and structurise
Information, I need to lay it out in space, be it a stack of notes,
some photos, or the documents on my computer screen. While tabs
or other forms of MDI represent several documents too, this 
representation is much less "tangible". To me SDI works like everything
else in the "real" world works since Kindergarten: I can "touch" it,
I can arrange it, I can move it arround. MDI does not work this way. It
is much more abstract.

I think I have posted the following link already once:

http://www.pangea.at/~ralph/gedit/

In that text I summarise several more arguments.


> 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.

It is simply redundant. Everything that is not needed distracts. And
it takes away screen estate (not only the tab, but the area next to
the tab too).

> 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.

Well to me, the "MDI problem" is the only problem of gedit. Otherwise
it is just perfect. It does a lot more than I need, without distracting. 
It is reasonably fast, even on old hardware.


> 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.

It is certainly fast enough for me!

> Sorry, if I has been a bit rude in this mail... but it is so early in
> the morning :)

I am not the one you responded to, but I do not think this mail is
rude. You have every right in the world to write your software in
a way that suits you. And I would like to thank you for writing fine
software like gedit!.

/ralph