Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
Flávio Etrusco wrote:
Graeme,
we understand what you mean, (but) we just don't think there's an
authoritative definition.
On the contrary, Waldo Kitty hit the nail on the head. IBM and Microsoft
defined the definition when they invented the idea of MDI for OS/2 and
early Windows. So I would say the behaviour of MDI under Windows (and as I
described) would be an accurate definition of what MDI is and how it should
work.
Regards,
- Graeme -
The trouble with this whole messy thread is that SDI and MDI are single
/ multiple DOCUMENT interfaces (not single / multiple windows). When a
single file is a single document displayed in a single form(eg a word
processor file) then it is all pretty straight forward, much like Graeme
has described. When you try to apply it to something like a development
IDE, the first thing you have to define is what the document is - is it
a source file (unit) or the whole project ? And all the extra windows
(inspectors, watches, messages, etc) just don't fit either model. in a
normal MDI, you can open multiple documents, but it usually assumes they
all open exactly the same way, eg another instance of the same class of
editor. (Consider the old Delphi MDI application template).
If you consider the document to be a project, then Deplhi (<= 6) and
lazarus are SDIs - you only have one project open at once, (unless you
have multiple Delphi/Lazs open). If you think of the units as the
documents, you can only relate the models to the source editor window,
and it doesn't follow either model. (Is that what TDI is ? Tabbed doc
interface ?)
For the record, in Deplhi 4* where I have docking, I usually have all
the source files in one tabbed set, form design windows separate, and
all the other stuff - inspectors, watches, messages, etc, docked into
another tabbed set. If the docking problems are to do with synedit,
then even if we could dock all the Lazarus windows except the source
editor and design forms into a tabbed set, that would be a great step
forward. But I would not like to be be FORCED to have anything as a
tabbed set (as in Graeme's original proposal), as you never know when
you want to look at two things at the same time.
cheers,
John Sunderland
* Last version of Delphi that I have access to that does databases.
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