Re: MDI on X11

[Marko Macek <Marko Macek gmx net>]

Matthias Ettrich wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 24 Jul 1999, Marko Macek wrote:
> > Matthias Ettrich wrote:
> >
> > > What's your opinion about that? Shall we add a common MDI protocol to the
> >
> > IMHO I'd say no.
> >
> > > specs?  I'd say yes, given that noone is forced to implement it.
> >
> > Good. I certainly wont. (use it or implement it).
> >
> > BTW: Most people I have seen always have their document in word
> > maximized because mdi is just an annoyance.
> 
> Your personal optionion apart, given the choice between ugly MDI with each
> application emulation there own window manager (for example staroffice) or at
> least consistant MDI with the WM doing _all_ decorations, what would you chose?

I'd strongly prefer to choose no MDI at all :)  (Any kind of MDI, no
just Windows style window-in-window).

I would really prefer that the ability of a single process to manage
multiple documents would be completelly hidden from the user. It should
be just an implemention detail. (A document centric interface, not an
application centric one).

> MDI, while probably a bad choice for a wordprocessor, makes perfect sense for
> certain kind of applications: IDEs and the GIMP comes to my mind. Just the fact

I quite like GIMP the way it is. But I really dislike MS C++ DevStudio
(I wish that C/C++ IDE supported separate toplevel windows like Visual
Basic does :)

> that it wasn't possible to do it on X properly while Microsoft used it doesn't
> mean it's a totally wrong concept.

The X way is just to run the app in it's own workspace. And if you want
to open some other app side-by side you can do it easily.

Mark
-- 
... GUI: WPS.
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Marko.Macek@gmx.net                 http://www.kiss.uni-lj.si/~k4fr0235/