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

[Andrew Stanley-Jones]

Lubos Lunak wrote:
>  Ok, let me comment a bit on the issue:
> 
>  First of all, I don't see any fundamental reason why the WM couldn't be able 
> to handle tabs or similar things. There wouldn't be any messing with widgets 
> hiearchy or anything similar. As Waldo pointed out, if you want to see a 
> widget managed by the WM, just in the 'Style' kcontrol module enable the 
> standalone toplevel menubar.
> 

I've been sitting on the sidelines watching this with a little interest. 
  Being the former kSirc guy, and now returning to supporting KDE/kSirc 
I thought I might have some comments.

- In 99 MDI windows were all the rage.
- In 02 Tabbed mode is all the rage.
- What next?

kSirc has a generic interface for the creating the top level mode, right 
now it does the SDI mode and Tabbed modes.  People want both, and I'm 
still not pleased with all the features and would like to try a create a 
new 3rd one.  At least you can detach tabs now.

The WM supporting tabbed/mdi modes is a really neat idea, but only KDEs 
WM would support it.  That's simply not acceptable!  I want my app to be 
useable in as many environments as possible.  (ok, it might suck so much 
at the moment people wouldn't want too, but I'de like to fix that)

The other real problem is, I want some apps to operate in MDI mode, some 
in SDI mode.  The ones in MDI don't all do it the same way since their 
all doing different things.

I think a generic MDI or DisplayMgr (like kSirc) class would be great 
for apps.  They could extend it and customize it for their uses, but 
keep it simple.

-Andrew