Re: Better MDI idea...(Was: Re: gnome-terminal idea)

[David Jeske <jeske home chat net>]

On Tue, Sep 22, 1998 at 07:10:01PM -0400, Evan Lawrence wrote:
> Gnome MDI does support using multiple windows (netscape style) instead of
> the notebook tabs if you prefer - I think keeping the support for notebook
> tabs is required though, since not everyone has support for the higher
> screen resolutions that allow you to do that, or just choose not to use
> them for whatever their reason..

I'm much happier when my apps use separate address spaces for each
'document' ala xterm. That way when a rogue bug takes the app down it
dosn't take down my other documents. As soon as Mozilla is relatively
stable this'll be the first change I make to it.

> > In this mode, the window manager would let you 'dock' windows together
> > into the same physical space, so that the 'tabs' (i.e. if you have not
> > seen BeOS, it has window titlebars which are only as wide as the
> > title) would line up horizontally next to eachother. If you dragged
> > the window, it would move all of the docked together windows.
> 
> This sounds like a really good idea, but I'm not sure how easily GNOME
> could implement it - from what you've described, it sounds like it'd need
> to be controlled by the window manager, which would require yet
> another window manager hint - GNOME needs to keep some alternative
> (notebook tabs, ATM) for people using window managers that don't support
> that added hint (which, AFAIK, none do)

I definetly don't think it would be a 'Gnome' thing, as you said it
would be controlled by the Window manager. I don't know that it would
require additional window manager hints. I'm all for letting the
user's either doc the windows themselves, or set up the window manager
to just doc all windows of an app together. Either way, until a window
manager support it, there isn't much point in worrying about some WM
hint. If/when it gets implemented, it may make sense for the Gnome-MDI
stuff to add a hint do MDI windows so that compliant window managers
can smartly doc those windows if the user chooses.

-- 
David Jeske (N9LCA) + http://www.chat.net/~jeske/ + jeske@chat.net