Moving QExtMDI to kdelibs

[Neil Stevens]

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On Wednesday May 14, 2003 02:39, F at lk Brettschneider wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Some comments:
>
> 1.) MDI just stands for *any* visualization of an application that works
> with multiple documents at the same time.
>
> 2.) Do not think QextMDI is equal to Microsoft's MDI approach!!!
>       QextMDI just supports this mode as one of 4 visualization modes
> (switchable at runtime) because
>       a) many users like it and
>       b) this is an important condition for companies which want to
> easily port their apps to KDE
>       You might disable that mode in a KDE configuration "old-fashioned
> Unix" or "new-fashioned Win32".

Your MDI windows don't look exactly like Windows' MDI, but the basic 
concept is still the same.  You're centering people's thoughts an actions 
on the application, not the document.  This runs against the  
document-centered designs used by KDE up until now.

> 3.) The API of QextMDI allows to add new visualization modes like e.g.
> used in Kate.
>
> 4.) KDevelop, Quanta, KBear use or want to use QextMDI. This should be
> reason enough to share it in a KDE base lib.

Not if it goes against KDE standards.

> 5.) The KDE style guide is unsufficient!!! The idea tends in the right
> direction but it's too restrictive
>       and
>       a) doesn't reflect the real needs of more complex apps like e.g.
> IDEs b) the term "MDI" is used wrongly. TabPage modes like in Konqueror
> or Toplevel modes like in Borland Builder are MDI as well.

So why don't *you* propose a new MDI Policy?  You keep emphasising the MDI 
can work many different ways, which makes me think that QExtMDI would be 
very, very bad for KDE consistency unless some strict guidelines are 
written for its use.

Also, does QExtMDI support a global default setting?  Since you can't force 
all apps to use QExtMDI, the easiest way to mainatain KDE consistency 
would be to default all MDI apps to an SDI mode.

- -- 
Neil Stevens - neil at qualityassistant.com
"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the
sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him
for the same act as the destroyer of liberty." -- Abraham Lincoln
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