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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Duplicated efforts and consistency (SDI/MDI in konq, konsole etc. ...)
From:       Moritz Moeller-Herrmann <mmh () gmx ! net>
Date:       2001-03-12 21:29:30
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[Crossposted to kde-look]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2001 at 10:07:39PM +0100, Richard Stevens wrote:


>> I think SDI is still the preffered way. Toplevel MDI is broken by design
>> IMO. 

>I really don't understand why many KDE-Developers are agains MDI but I'd like 
>to understand. Is there some document covering the reasons for not having MDI 
>in KDE? Maybe somebody remembers, where to look in the mailinglistarchive. I 
>heard it has been discussed heavily in the past.

And KDE applications in the core should follow the style guide. It explicitly
states that KDE is SDI-only:
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/standards/kde/style/basics/windows.html

The main reason: The KDE offers a way to switch between sevberal instances of
programs: kicker including taskbars and so on. This is the accepted way.
That way a user has to learn one way to switch between documents, programs and
so on. Not one way for every application. Consistency!

Only exceptionally should you introduce another way to adress several instances
of a program. A good example: konsole.

Not having used kant, I can not judge if MDI makes sense for it.


BTW: "Stacking" several instances of an app in a single kicker taskbar instance
(like Windows XP seems to do) would make MDI even more silly.


>> With a more general MDI solution, applications should default to SDI with
>> an configration option to enable MDI mode. That way the application can
>> dump a bunch of its menu-entries when running SDI, making it less heavy
>> handed and overwhelming for new users.

I like that approach. SDI = Default, MDI only for the people who like it and
find the configuration option.

>Can't resist. Most of them will come from Windows and know MDI anyways ;)

Yes, right and fuck stability of KDE as well, they are not used to anything better.

-- 
Moritz Moeller-Herrmann ICQ #3585990

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