RE: [gtkmm] MDI on gtkmm

[Murray Cumming Comneon com]

> I'm trying to develop the MDI concept on gtkmm. We don't want 
> to use the 
> gnome libraries because we are evaluating only the gtkmm toolkit (we 
> don't even use direct calls to gtk+ functions). Using Gtk::Layout as 
> container it has been easy to emulate the MDI behaviour. The 
> problem is 
> that when a MDIchild contains a Gtk::ScrolledWindow, the 
> scrollbars seem 
> to be in a lower z-level than other widgets. So, when a MDIchild 
> (mdiChild1) is over another MDIchild (mdiChild2), all the widgets 
> comprised in mdiChild1 are over any widget comprised in mdiChild2, 
> except the scrollbars, that are below and seem to disappear 
> under mdiChild2.
> 
> Has anyone had a similar problem? What's wrong? What can I do?

I don't think that Gtk::Layout or any other GTK+ container is meant to
support overlapping widgets. I'm sure that some other people have tried to
implement window-in-window MDI. You might ask on gtk-list gnome org if you
do not find discussion in the archives. You might also ask there about
overlapping widgets in general.

But most people will tell you that window-in-window MDI is a bad UI design.
Please read the archives about why it is a bad UI design rather than
discussing again why it is a bad UI design. Tabbed-window MDI, as in gedit
or mozilla or epiphany, does not seem so bad.

But maybe you just want "window-in-window" and not any MDI at all, just so
you can show more than one window at a time. In this case, maybe you do not
really need the child windows to be in a parent window. Maybe it is enough
for the child windows to _belong_ to the parent window. Gimp, with it's
toolboxes, might be a example of this.

Murray Cumming
www.murrayc.com
murrayc usa net