Main windows...

Rob Browning rlb@cs.utexas.edu
20 Nov 2000 10:09:26 -0600


(This was originally to Robert and the list, but the list copy
 bounced (pilot error), so here it is again...)

I saw your discussion on IRC about the main window (tabs vs new
windows, etc.) and I just thought I'd mention that Bill and I had a
similar discussion the other day.  I had been sorta thinking that we
should be able to have as many paned windows open as we wanted.
Basically, whenever you feel like it, you'd be able to open a new
window and start adding panes to it.  Also, various menus or "URL"
hot-links might bring up new paned windows.

There would still have to be a way to pull up a window listing *all*
the accounts, but I figured that might even just be, for now, a menu
option that brought up the old main-window...

Of course, I hadn't really thought about how all this should interact
with the top-of-window menus.  Perhaps the pane specific menus should,
be on the right click menu, and, given the malleability of a
paned-window, perhaps the top-level menu should just contain mostly
"global" items.  I.e. you'd get to an account by clicking on it in a
pane, not via a menu item, etc.

Of course, I also recognize that we've got limited time, so I'm mostly
talking about the long term.  Right now we just need something fairly
good.

Oh, and WRT tabs, in theory I'm not a big fan when they're used as a
primary interface element.  In those cases, it seems like they're used
in places where I'd really rather my window manager be in charge of
things, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.  Also, there'd be
*nothing* wrong with allowing a pane-centric approach as an option, or
is that what Gnome-MDI's supposed to do?

-- 
Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu> PGP=E80E0D04F521A094 532B97F5D64E3930