WM managed MDI (was Re: Three different tab implementations)

[Lubos Lunak]

On Monday 03 of February 2003 18:13, Neil Stevens wrote:
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> On Monday February 03, 2003 08:55, Christoph Cullmann wrote:
> > > >  But a flexible universal MDI will require a lib, be it handled by
> > > > the lib itself or the WM. The lib may allow you to configure it so
> > > > that you'll get all tabs automatically undocked as toplevel windows
> > > > even if it implements the MDI all on its own. This one isn't a very
> > > > good reason why it should be the WM.
> > >
> > > Universal MDI require anything not in KMainWindow or KApplication.  If
> > > you require apps to go and add MDI-specific things, then it will not
> > > be universal.  Or else SDI-fan developers won't use it.
> > >
> > > And also, a universial *optional* MDI must be obeyed by an application
> > > developer.  If an MDI-fan developer does MDI in his app anyway, then a
> > > global SDI option won't have any efficacy.
> >
> > A global SDI option is simply not doable at all, a app is mdi or not,
> > the mdi style can be changed, for sure, but MDI stays MDI.
>
> Well, it's not doable if certain MDI developers refuse to accomodate SDI
> users, that's true.  But I think within KDE we assume that all apps are
> required to obey the standards, and we can write kdelibs such that
> non-standard apps require special effort to achieve.

 You simply cannot change project-like MDI apps to SDI. There are several 
documents which belong together, and if you make them completely unrelated, 
you loose functionality (say, for example, editing one file in two views). 
You can make them look like SDI by creating the documents in independent 
windows, but it still will be MDI inside the app.

-- 
Lubos Lunak
KDE developer
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