Plugable Window Interface (Re: MDI)

[Philipp Meier <philipp meier medizin uni-ulm de>]

Hello,

I just had an idea of improving window management. I like emacs because
of it's buffer/window/frame design (showing the same buffer multiple,
open a new frame even on another display...) When I played around with
Microsoft's Developer studio (yes, I hate M$ too ;-) I got fond of the
"dock window" function. I personally do not like "floating windows"
because the hide each other. KWM e.g. makes the window borders "snappy"
so it's very easy to align the window nicely.
I thought about a combined handlebox-panel widget, which could make
working with a gui much, I suppos. So you could snap a window into some
king of grid, resizing a window etc. without messing up your "screen
layout":

                   +------------o-+---------------o-+------------o-+
                   I Editor       I Class Browser   I Button Bar   I
                   I              >                 I              I
                   I              <                 I              I
                   I              I                 >              I
                   +------^v----o-+                 <              I
                   I Editor II    >                 I              I
                   I              <                 I              I
                   I              +--------^v-----o-+-------v^---o-+
                   I              I Irc                            I
                   I--------------+--------------------------------+

"^v><" will be buttons to grow/shrink the window, what means to move the
border between them.
(you'll be able to drag the borders with the mouse, of course)
the "o" button could maximize the window to the whole screen:

                   +-------------------------------------------o-+++
                   I Editor                                      III
                   I                                             >II
                   I                                             <II
                   I                                             I>I
                   +                                             +<I
                   I                                             >II
                   I                                             <II
                   I                                         +^v+v^+
                   I------^v------------------------------------I-II
                   I----------------------------------------------++

aaah, a little bit confusing *hehe* perhaps I'll draw a nice gif image
soon.
I'll try to implement a "case study" with gnome-perl (thow I think this
could get really hard, but I love perl). I hope you did understand my
Idea, so I wait for your feedback.

so long,
    Philipp Meier




--
Philipp Meier / philipp.meier@medizin.uni-ulm.de
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