Re: gnome-terminal idea

[Tim Moore <tmoore tembel org>]

George wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Sep 22, 1998 at 09:57:09PM -0400, Tim Moore wrote:
> > > have you taken a look at gnome mdi
> >
> > Only in gEdit, which doesn't seem to respect the settings you make in
> > L&F properties.
> 
> just because gedit has bugs doesn't mean teh concept sucks

Right, just that I get an incomplete picture of it.

> 
> > > .. it can do both .... I for one like
> > > the notebook approach a lot ... but you can just use the toplevel
> > > window part ...
> >
> > Right, I mentioned that I knew you could change it, I just didn't know
> > why anybody *wouldn't*.
> 
> I don't know why anybody would want to use anythign else then vi ...
> does that mean that all editors should be erradicated and vi should be used
> for all

Well, I can think of lots of reasong why someone wouldn't want to use
vi, but We won't get into that. :-)

But I do think that if nobody actually uses some feature or app, it
probably *should* be eliminated because its a waste of effort and
clutters the interface. I'm not trying to suggest that this is one of
those cases, but I do think there are better ways to accomplish the same
thing.

> 
> gnome mdi gives you the option of using both, there are problems with the
> current implementation, but that's a compeltely different concept

OK.

> 
> > How so? With separate windows I just put them on top of each other. With
> > tabs, I have a big row of tabs on the screen all the time. Now when I
> > just stack them, it of course obscures the windows in the back such that
> > I can't tell that they're there, but if that bothers me, I have my WM
> > use a taskbar. Taskbars serve pretty much the same purpose as the row of
> > tabs, but work for all of the windows on the desktop, not just one app
> > at a time. This way, I end up having a taskbar, plus a row of tabs in
> > each app, taking much more space up.
> 
> taskbar includes all the windows, tehrefor it's quite confusing to find
> the window you want unless you keep your windowcount to a minimum,
> I often have several netscape windows, and on each desktop at least a
> couple of open terminals ... if I could have a window with tabs on each
> desktop I would save so much space, while still making it easy to switch
> between different windows ...

Some WMs I know only put the windows on the current desktop in the
taskbar, which I think is the effect you're describing.

> 
> toplevel windows I usually place so that I see at least a part of them,
> since the fastest way to switch between about 20 windows is to actually
> just click on it ... (instead of going forward/back until you find it ...

I prefer either a taskbar or a window-list menu, but that's just me.

> 
> basically what I'm saying is that just because you find some way better
> doesn't mean that's gonna work for all people ...

OK. I can agree with that of course. I still think there are better ways
to deal with the problem than combining all windows into one. David
Jeske's idea to have "dockable" windows with tabs for titlebars is one.

> 
> > Oh, that's kinda cool. I didn't know you could do that. But it doesn't
> > work in gEdit or gTop (at least not on my 0.27-0.28 GNOME installation).
> > Is this a recent innovation, or do I need to use another app to see
> > that?
> 
> this has been there ever since the linux expo .. so v0.20
> 

How can I see it? Are there any apps that actually use MDI correctly?

Tim