GNOME 2: MDI or SDI?

[Wesley Leggette]

On having the entire application become SDI, I first considered how I
use reports. Since it is impossible to conviently store report setups
(except by manually backing them up) without keeping them open, I like
to keep them open. It would seem to me that by creating a complete SDI,
I would lose the ability to easily keep all my reports open. Also, now
there's a nice distinction between registers (which you can close at
will without worrying about losing your settings) and reports (which you
cannot save).

Of course, I suppose just adding the ability to save reports, and even
better groups of reports, would go a long way. To elaborate, you could
export or bookmark or whatever your custom configurations for reports.
You could then also group them together and open the whole group at
once. Very neat.





On Mon, 2004-06-07 at 23:53, Chris Lyttle wrote:
> 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
> > >> > 
> > >> > _______________________________________________
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> > >> 
> > >> 
> > >
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