Re: window-in-window MDI

[Kent Schumacher <kent structural-wood com>]

"John R. Sheets" wrote:

> On Friday, March 17, 2000, Andreas Sliwka <goff@nef.wh.uni-dortmund.de> wrote:
> >
> >   - should programs be able to override the users Setting of MDI?
> >       this one is open, but maybe it is not so necessary.
>
> They already can.  The real question is the reverse: should GNOME be
> able to override the app's request for an MDI mode.  The current way is
> to unconditionally change the mode if the app asks.  The app doesn't
> have to worry about whether or not its request succeeded or not.
>
> If we hack in an override switch to disable WiW from the Control Center,
> as has been proposed, the app will no longer have that certainty.  Does
> it need that certainty?  I don't know.  But it does add complexity to
> the application-side implementation of MDI.
>
> For example, an application that has menu items for changing the MDI
> mode.  In theory, all MDI applications should have some way of doing
> this.  However, what does it do with its WiW menu item?  If the user
> disables WiW, the app must either remove the menu item, or gray it out.
> More code, more complexity.  GNOME cannot do this because the
> application is the one who sets up the menu, not gnome-libs.  It has to
> do something, because the user should not be able to click on a menu
> item that does nothing (or even worse, switches to some _other_ fallback
> MDI mode).
>
> Any solutions to this problem that doesn't involve obfuscating app-level
> code?
>
> John

I think the point about GNOME being able to override the applications MDI
choice is being made as a counter to the claim that we won't be able to take
window-in-window MDI out of GNOME if there is some future reason to do
so.

Kent