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List:       kde-look
Subject:    KDE Standards - Basic - Windows
From:       Waldo Bastian <bastian () suse ! de>
Date:       1999-09-22 14:55:56
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Hiya,

I will give some of my views about the new KDE UI Guidelines.
I try to stick with one subject per e-mail so you will see some more mails of me :-)

KDE Standards - Basic - Windows
=============================

The current style guide, although not clearly, seems to present SDI as the one and
only solution. Althoug I'm not a fan of MDI myself, some people are, and support
for this might be added for this in KDE in the future. Therefore I think it would be worthwhile
to specify a standard for both SDI and MDI. Even though it will be very hard to implement
a proper MDI  interface at the moment.

Currently it is stated:
In a MDI we have an Exit, which quits the application (= mother window) and a 
Close, which closes a document (= child window). In a SDI we have no Exit and no Close. 
We have a Quit, which should close the document and it's window.

My opinion:

1) File->Quit should terminate the application as perceived by the user. 
(This is always the same as clicking the X on the main window border)
* For SDI this means, the mainwindow (only 1) should be closed as well as the 
document inside it.
* For MDI this means all child-windows should be closed as well as any mother window,
together with all documents inside it.

2) File->Close should mean "close file" or "close document" (or "close image", or whatever you have) 
After all this option is in the file menu. Close never quits the application.
* For SDI this means that the document is closed but not the window. An empty window will
remain. 
* For MDI this means that the document and its window is closed. (But not the mainwindow)

3) Optionally a "Close window" option can be added to a menu (a window menu?). This is
_exactly_ the same as selecting "Close" from the WM-menu. 
* In SDI this is equivalent to File->Quit.
* in MDI this is equivalent to File->Close.

4) File->Open opens a new file/document/image without closing any existent document.

* In SDI the document is opened in the main-window if it is empty, or in a new one if the
window already contains a document.
* In MDI the document is opened in a new (child) window.

5) Closing a document (whatever the cause) should always ask the user whether he wants 
to save his changes, if any changes have been made.


Remarks:

With SDI several windows can in fact be part of a single process. Since this is not clear to
the user, 'quit' should always terminate _1_ mainwindow, and _1_ mainwindow only.


Cheers,
Waldo

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