Re: window-in-window MDI

[Jaka Mocnik <jaka mocnik kiss uni-lj si>]

Havoc Pennington wrote:
> Hi,
hello!

> Jaka recently committed new GnomeMDI stuff for window-in-window MDI to
> gnome-libs. I don't think we want to add this feature; I would much
> rather see documentation and enhanced support for the nicer form of
> MDI we already have.
1. yes, window-in-window MDI is annoying, unintuitive and a waste of
screen real estate. I completely agree with this one.
2. I've included it as an option in GnomeMDI because a number of people
requested it. The choice which MDI model to use is still up to the
user (unless some application hardcodes the MDI mode to one that it
sees most fit for itself).
3. as far as the GnomeMDI as an API goes, yes, it could and should have
been thought of better. the code in HEAD is already a big improvement
over the 1.0 one, but APIs that want to automate and hide many things
from the programmer tend to get such. I hope the HEAD version will fix
most of what I think I've screwed up for 1.0 without much API changes.
so, I'm obviously working (but rather slowly, I admit) on enhanced
support. any help, patches or merely ideas and propositions are, of
course, very welcome.
4. documentation? I think that all of MDI sources are well documented;
the tutorial in devel-docs/gnome-dev-info/gnome-mdi.sgml is indeed
obsolete and should be updated. I'll get to that.

> In fact I seem to remember that we explicitly allowed GnomeMDI only
> because it _wasn't_ window-in-window MDI.
it still _isn't_.

> In any case this change should have gone by the mailing list before
> being committed.
sorry. I'll keep this in mind. I just thought that this issue was
settled on long ago.

> So, can we have some discussion of the change, and revert the change
> if there isn't a consensus to include it?
so, as far as I am concerned, this is a matter of freedom of choice (I
hope I don't get shot at an entrance to a clinic - whoops, this was a
tasteless one), but as I am in no way emotionally attached to these
changes, I can happily revert them if the people of Rome (ah, pardon,
GNOME) decide so ;) ...

let the discussion begin... 

regards,
	jaKa

-- 

w3:    http://pluton.ijs.si/~jaka
email: jaka.mocnik@kiss.uni-lj.si