GNOME 2: MDI or SDI?

[Chris Lyttle]

Let me add a me too here. I like the current way GnuCash handles account
registers as single windows. I would like to see the ability to have
tabbed individual account windows, so that I could group several open
accounts into one sdi, or also the ability to have a single window for
'reports' or whatever grouping I prefer. This to me would mimic the way
I currently use spreadsheets, the web, docs, etc in that I have a single
window with a logical group that I decide and another window with either
a single thing (that I may be cutting and pasting from) or another group
that I've been using. This may be to hard to do right now, and I'm happy
with the way things are right now so to me this is 'pie in the sky' what
I'd eventually like to see.

Chris

On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 06:52, Derek Atkins wrote:
> FWIW, I like the way 1.8 does it...  Account registers are their own
> window, and reports are either in a tab or a new window based on user
> preference.  We should retain this option.
> 
> The next step, of course, is providing users the choice of having
> account windows in their own window or a tab.  Different people seem
> to like different ways of doing it.  Personally I like the 1.8
> behavior and I'd like to see the g2 port continue that way.
> 
> I'll note that we don't necessarily need to use "MDI" per se..  The
> secondary windows are not standalone -- if you exit the app, all
> windows get closed.
> 
> But whether accounts or reports are opened as tabs or new windows
> should be a user option like it is in 1.8.  Just my $1.02.
> 
> -derek
> 
> Christian Neumair <chris at gnome-de.org> writes:
> 
> > Am Mo, den 07.06.2004, 8:16 Uhr -0400 schrieb John P. New:
> >> I, on the other hand, despise the SDI way that GnuCash behaves, and
> >> would much rather tabs than separate windows.
> >
> > The GNOME 2 branch uses such an MDI design. I think it sucks. You can
> > check out the GNOME 2 branch yourself and play around a bit.
> >
> >> I find that when I am working with Gnucash, I have other applications
> >> open at the same time. Mozilla to view multiple bank sites (all in their
> >> own tabs, by the way), OpenOffice spreadsheets that calculate anything
> >> from gas and electric bills to business expenses (and again, while there
> >> are several instances of OpenOffice running, each spreadsheet has
> >> multiple tabs of information). Unfortunately, the Gnucsh windows get all
> >> mixed up amongst these other applications, making navigation between
> >> accounts somewhat of a pain. I cringe at the confusion that would result
> >> if Mozilla and OpenOffice didn't support tabs.
> >> I was hoping that someone would eventually see the light (well, my
> >> light, anyway :-) ) and design GnuCash to use MDI for account windows.
> >
> > It's a matter of smart window management.
> >
> > regs,
> >  Chris
> >
> >> On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 04:26, Christian Neumair wrote:
> >> > We've not yet made a decision whether we ought to use MDI or SDI for the
> >> > GNOME 2 port, which is a fundamental decision. In my opinion, we should
> >> > in no way mix them, because that heavily confuses users. We need to open
> >> > accounts in new windows anyway, and opening reports in the same window
> >> > is weird, because it is inconsistent with the rest of GnuCash. Plus,
> >> > notebook tabs occupy space. That's why I propose to use exlusively SDI,
> >> > i.e. accounts, reports and all the other thingies are fired up in new
> >> > windows instead of in new tabs. That would mean removal of the plugin
> >> > page concept. Instead, we have action/task-specific windows.
> >> > Comments, suggestions?
> >> > 
> >> > regs,
> >> >  Chris
> >> > 
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > gnucash-devel mailing list
> >> > gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> >> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
> >> 
> >> 
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnucash-devel mailing list
> > gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
> >
> >
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