>>> Hate to disagree but I only noticed the disadvantage of this Windows
>>> "feature". I have yet to hear the benefits.
>>
>> This is one of the standard windowing models described in the Windows Human
>> Interface Guidelines because it allows document windows to be more closely
>> associated (both visually and behaviorally) with the application they belong
>> to.
>
> Which doesn't necessarily makes that association intuitive or even necessary.
> Basically it obliges one to have one window opened at time be able to use it,
> or have the main window take over the entire desktop. Doesn't mean that if
> it's in the books it must be right, does it?
In this case, that's true more often than not: Much of Microsoft's HIG is
borrowed from Apple's, which, at the time it was written, was based on a lot
of great UI research (see "Tog on Interface" for some of the stories of
Apple's old UI lab, disbanded under Amelio and never reinstated by Jobs,
which is how we got to the beautiful but questionable Aqua). (And to be
fair, Microsoft does have the most well-funded UI research facility in the
world; sadly, many of their designs must be different from their findings
due to legal restrictrictions as part of the outcome of the Apple-Microsoft
suit.)
But even heuristically, the MDI bears merit as at least an option for
designers. And remember, it's only one of three primary windowing schemes
described in the Win HIG, so there are choices.
Looking at the MDI, it doesn't require maximizing to cover the monitor any
more than a single-window UI. In both cases there are times when you want
it mazimized, and times when you don't, and easy controls to toggle that.
But moreover, aside from the clear benefits of designing apps for both Mac
and Windows for the designer, the user benefits as well, esp. in contexts
where it is likely the user will want to have multiple documents open, as in
Word. By having the documents share a common layer visually and
behaviorally, the functional relationship between the documents (copy and
paste between them, perform searches across documents, etc.) is strongly
reinforced.
By contrast, with a MetaCard-based app it is possible to have two document
windows which belong to the same process running in very different layers,
with another process window in between them. This is only true on Windows
of course (Linux too?), as on Mac the unified layer is enforced by the OS.
In cases where an application may have document windows with very different
look and controls, it may be confusing to have them operating in different
layers, seeming as it would that they might belong to different active
processes.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Multimedia Design and Development for Mac, Windows, UNIX, and the Web
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