Moving QExtMDI to kdelibs

[David Faure]

On Tuesday 13 May 2003 23:39, Jason Keirstead wrote:
> And the idea that MDI offers no benefits to the user is insane.  It lets you avoid having tons of windows everywhere you
> have to manage

I think the styleguide talks about the "windows inside windows" 
kind of MDI, which we all agree that we don't like much. That one does NOT
avoid having tons of windows, since, worse than all, it has two levels of windows.

The other sorts of MDI are fine IMHO.

> Whether or not MDI is horrible in theory is not the issue.. it is if the user should be forced ot use SDI when they don't want
> to. I can tell you right now that if the MDI was removed from Konq, Kate, and Konsole we would suddenly see the usage
> of those apps drop like a rock, and I would probably be forced to ditch KDE altogether for (ugh) GNOME, because I *like*
> MDI (tab style), always have. I still turn it on whenever I fire up MS Office under Windows, and many many other people
> feel the same way, proven by the huge number of MDI apps already in KDE. 

MDI in general, yes (with tabs or splitters). "Windows inside windows", no.

But since, as I understand it, QExtMdi implements all those modes, i.e.
gives nostalgic users the awful "windows inside windows" mode for free
(from a development point of view), then why not have it in too...

> I think this QExtMdi would be excellent in kdelibs because finally all these MDI apps can have a consistant interface and
> features. Right now they all behave differently. But the ability to switch from tab mode to to level mode on the fly in apps
> like Konq and Kate and KOffice would be a dream come true for me.

Yes (provided that the API and implementation are good enough, which I
have no input on).

-- 
David Faure -- faure at kde.org, dfaure at klaralvdalens-datakonsult.se
Qt/KDE/KOffice developer
Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB, Platform-independent software solutions