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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: kghostview queries
From:       Waldo Bastian <bastian () suse ! de>
Date:       1999-10-15 13:35:51
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On Fri, 15 Oct 1999, Bo Thorsen wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Oct 1999, Waldo Bastian wrote:
> > I don't see a reason why kghostview should be MDI. It could just be an
> > SDI application IMHO. (We did agree that SDI is preferred over MDI)
> 
> Why on earth would you want to tell me that I can't have two kghostview
> windows open at one time??? When MDI is pounded on it is usually in the
> case where you have windows contained inside one big window. Apps that can
> open multiple windows are not something I want to live without!

You can have one UNIX process which offers the user two instances of
kghostview. From a UI perspective you then have two
instances of the kghostview application. Each of these applications
show exactly one document. This is what we call a single document
interface (SDI). 

Note that there is quite some misunderstanding about the term
"application". For a user, each entry in the taskbar is a running
application. For a programmer, each UNIX process is a running
application. UI's are designed from a user point of view. So the term
SDI or MDI should be determined based on how the user looks at the
"application". The user is basically not interested in UNIX processes
(unless your application crashes very often...) so the number of UNIX
processes you (as a programmer) require to give the user N
applications,  is for the UI not very interesting. 

As a result the UI should express itself in terms of the application and
not in terms of the UNIX process. This means that it is very bad
form a UI point of view to have a "Quit" which terminates all
applications (closes all windows) of a given UNIX process.

Instead you should only have an option which terminates a single
application (close a single window) Whether that terminates the UNIX
process as well depends on whether this same UNIX process hosts other
applications at that moment.

Cheers,
Waldo

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