[Usability] MDI / CSDI / global toolbar question

[Pat Mahoney <pmahoney uiuc edu>]

Hello,  (please cc replies)

I'm writing a stop-motion animation software using gtk/gnome as the
interface and have some questions about how to best lay things out in
the interface.

I've read the section in the HIG
(http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/draft_hig_new/windows-primary.html#document-interface-types)
(I've also read the old HIG which includes CSDI), and the bug 116599
(http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=116599) regarding the removal
of CSDI.

The "document" for this application is an "animation", represented as a
list of thumbnail images and a single larger image of the current frame.
In addition, a camera is required to grab frames from.

Currently, I have an animation window as the main window, and a seperate
camera window displaying a live video feed from the camera and various
camera controls.  Screenshots (works in progress):

http://www.polycrystal.org/scratch/animation.png
http://www.polycrystal.org/scratch/camera.png

If only a single camera and single animation could be used together, it
might be better to combine them into a single window, but this is not
the case.  For example, I might want two animations working from the
same camera (to help with various special effects), or I might want two
cameras and two animations linked together for stereo vision from the
two cameras.

How should I go about handling multiple documents?  The current multi
windowed approach has a camera window for each camera, and an animation
window for each animation.  This is SDI with a sort of global toolbar
that is the camera.  In some sense though, both example scenarios I
describe are a single document.

So, if the multiple window model is acceptable, then I have questions
about the camera window:
* Should it contain menus such as File->New [animation], File->New
  Camera, and File->Quit.  My opinion is "no".
* It will probably need a menubar anyway to access preferences, and a
  toolbar as well (largely for controlling the zoom of the display).
* On second thought, maybe it shouldn't have a toolbar because zooming
  should be a "set it and forget it" type of thing, not like in an image
  editor where you might change zoom often.

There is also the problem that launching a seperate instance of the
program will not allow it to share cameras with the first instance (this
is theoretically solvable but I don't really want to code it).

Comments, criticisms?  I apoligize for the length and any vagueness.
I'm still trying to work everything out in my head.  I know I asked many
questions; please focus on those concerning the document-window-camera
relationship.

Thank you.

P.S. The screenshot has access keys on the toolbars.  I know they
     shouldn't be there.  Glade likes them...

-- 
Pat Mahoney	<pmahoney uiuc edu>