Re: window-in-window MDI

["John R. Sheets" <dusk ravendusk org>]

On Friday, March 17, 2000, Andreas Sliwka <goff@nef.wh.uni-dortmund.de> wrote:
> 
>   - should programs be able to override the users Setting of MDI?
>       this one is open, but maybe it is not so necessary.

They already can.  The real question is the reverse: should GNOME be
able to override the app's request for an MDI mode.  The current way is
to unconditionally change the mode if the app asks.  The app doesn't
have to worry about whether or not its request succeeded or not.  

If we hack in an override switch to disable WiW from the Control Center,
as has been proposed, the app will no longer have that certainty.  Does
it need that certainty?  I don't know.  But it does add complexity to
the application-side implementation of MDI.

For example, an application that has menu items for changing the MDI
mode.  In theory, all MDI applications should have some way of doing
this.  However, what does it do with its WiW menu item?  If the user
disables WiW, the app must either remove the menu item, or gray it out.
More code, more complexity.  GNOME cannot do this because the
application is the one who sets up the menu, not gnome-libs.  It has to
do something, because the user should not be able to click on a menu
item that does nothing (or even worse, switches to some _other_ fallback
MDI mode).

Any solutions to this problem that doesn't involve obfuscating app-level
code?

John

-- 
dusk@ravendusk.org                                http://www.gnome.org
jsheets@codeweavers.com                      http://www.worldforge.org