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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: MDI to SDI - Minimizing
From:       Dave Leigh <dave.leigh () cratchit ! org>
Date:       2000-04-17 1:51:02
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Eric Ellsworth wrote:

> Apologies to everyone for reopening the extremely painful Exit menu item
> debate.
>
> My idea was actually more along the lines of the triple-click - a feature
> that doesn't change the way novice users interact with the OS, but helps
> advanced uers.  The essence is puttting windows into a container, especially
> when they're minimized.  So all those inexplicably open Netscape windows
> could be minimized into one taskbar icon - conceptually similar to stacking
> things on a desk up and putting them to the side.  Even cooler would be to
> be able to convert an MDI app to an SDI one - put all those documents back
> into a parent window, if you so desire.  And if apps were built  so that
> they could be switched back and forth between MDI and SDI, then you could
> easily do things like collect all the control panels into the Control Center
> or float all of them.  Is this doable?

Hmmm.  I really thought I would stay out of any further MDI/SDI debate...
I'm one that really likes MDI, but if it's "just not done" I can accept that,
too.

But this thread actually does contain a good argument for MDI... one of the
complaints I read was that "minimize all" is confusing because you have no way
of knowing which windows are connected to an app.  Well, that's only true of
SDI.  In an MDI it's immediately obvious.  Same is true of the "close all"
option.  It's useful and intuitively obvious in an MDI.  It's only when you
visually separate the documents from the application that it becomes
confusing.  What is bad about the Windows implementation has more to do with
the labeling of the menu options and keyboard selection of the child windows
than anything else.  It seems a little odd to me that people would reject an
interface that has so many good things going for it on the basis of those
things that are easiest to fix.

I expect that in the long run there *will* be MDI KDE apps.  In the meantime I
personally compromise by using one desktop per "offensive" app (nothing
personal, but to me things like floating toolbars, apparently disconnected from
any document on which they might act, are offensive).  That takes planning,
though.

--
    mailto:dave.leigh@cratchit.org
    http://www.cratchit.org/dleigh

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