Subject: Re: FAQ -- why the MSDI interface? (aka, no pagers please)
From: Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Aug 18 2001 - 03:46:31 CDT
--- Tim LaDuca <tjl@141.com> wrote: > I think there
is only one very specific problem with
> the current
> MSDI interface, and that is the ambiguity of
> File->close. If I
> start AbiWord, it opens with a new blank document. I
> did not ask
> for this blank document, so I would expect that
> File->Open opens
> the document in the same window(say by-bye to the
> blank new
> document. Currently this is exactly how abiword
> behaves. If I now
> go to File-Close, I would expect abiword to return
> to it's state
> before I did File-> open. That is, return to a blank
> new document.
> Currently however, that is not what happens, instead
> AbiWord
> closes. I beleive this is what a majority of the
> people
> complaining about the MSDI interface (including
> myself) have a
> problem with.
>
> When a document is already open, we have consistent
> behavior. File-
> >Open opens a new window. File-Close returns abiword
> to the state
> it was in before I chose File->Open, that is, it
> closes the window.
>
> Further, I think when most people go to File->Close
> they
> think "close the document", not "Close the window".
> If the window
> closes as a side-effect, that's fine, as long as it
> is
> appropriate. On the other hand, when most people
> think "I want to
> close the window" (at least on windows 9x) they
> click the little X
> in the upper right hand corner, and that's what they
> will do if
> they really want AbiWord to go bye-bye
> completely,(or they'll
> click File->Exit).
>
> Hope this helps,
> Tim
Thanks Tim. You've explained the problems perfectly
and I have to agree with you. Has anybody considered
comparing our behaviour to that of MSWord? Its
interface seems to be MDI built with SDI style windows
and is not far off our interface other than closing
the last window leaves Word open with no document.
Andrew Dunbar.
> ---------- Original Message
> ----------------------------------
> From: Paul Rohr <paul@abisource.com>
> Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 13:05:07 -0700
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >There's been a lot of noise and confusion recently
> about how and
> why our
> >window-management UI works, so as the author and
> designer of
> those features,
> >I'd like to clarify a few things.
> >
> >First, there are a ton of possible GUI precedents
> for how to
> manage windows
> >for documents and applications. Worse, these
> precedents vary
> greatly
> >depending on which platform you grew up with.
> >
> >The design choices I made consciously favor the
> following UI
> precedents:
> >
> > - Macintosh (app-centric, all documents share
> same menus)
> > - Windows (Mac-like, especially since Win95 added
> the taskbar)
> >
> >We are building what is essentially a mass-market
> desktop
> application, and
> >the overwhelming majority of desktop users (95+%)
> are already
> familiar with
> >one or both of those interfaces, so whatever we do
> *must* Just
> Work in their
> >eyes, and not confuse them.
> >
> >More specifically, the UI precedent I followed most
> closely was
> the single
> >most ubiquitous cross-platform application in the
> world -- web
> browsers.
> >It's no accident that most web browsers in
> widespread use have
> very very
> >similar UIs, and I deliberately chose to try to
> take advantage of
> that
> >commonality. Two complicating factors worth
> mentioning, though:
> >
> > 1. For most people, browsers are read-only
> tools. The fact
> that
> > we're an editor means that we're creating new
> documents,
> which
> > the browser UIs weren't necessarily optimized
> for.
> >
> > 2. Insofar as IE's window-management interface
> is a bit more
> > Windows-centric, it does occasionally diverge
> from the
> > pre-Mozilla Netscape UIs, and thus whenever
> the two
> diverged,
> > I usually tended to follow Netscape's lead.
> >
> >Thus, if you want to understand how the AbiWord
> window-management
> UI works,
> >run Netscape on either of those platforms. Our
> behaviors should
> be very
> >very close to what that product's already taught
> people to
> expect.
> >
> >For earlier discussions of these topics, see:
> >
> > http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-
> dev/99/May/0061.html
> > http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-
> dev/99/May/0074.html
> > http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-
> dev/99/May/0073.html
> >
> >terminology
> >-----------
> >We're using what's called a "Multiple SDI" (MSDI)
> interface. In
> the grand
> >scheme of things, this falls between:
> >
> > - true SDI ... only one document per app, period
> > - true MDI ... all documents share same
> application
> menu/container
> >
> >Like SDI, each document gets its own full top-level
> window. The
> application
> >is only "up and running" while you're editing a
> document. The
> application
> >"goes away" when you're done with the document(s).
> Unlike SDI,
> MSDI allows
> >us to use the same instance of the application to
> edit more than
> one
> >document at a time.
> >
> >Like MDI, the application can manage multiple
> documents at a
> time, and it's
> >easy to use application-level functionality (via
> the Window menu
> or the
> >Ctrl-Tab keybinding) to cycle between documents.
> Unlike MDI,
> there's no
> >top-level container which aggregates all of those
> documents, so
> it's not
> >possible to leave the app open with no documents.
> >
> >Note that in the Mac UI, the few differences
> between MDI and MSDI
> are much,
> >much subtler. In fact, if I did my job right a few
> years ago,
> then our
> >existing XP MSDI policies for window management
> will map *very*
> cleanly into
> >a native Mac look and feel. Hub may need a
> platform-specific
> #ifdef in one
> >spot, but otherwise I think I got very close.
> We'll see. ;-)
> >
>
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=====
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