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Philip J. Koenig wrote:
>>>> The are only two things one could say are unusual for an SDI
>>>> application. One is that the SDI windows still have a "close window"
>>>> button for the "child window" (which is in reality a degenerated child
>>>> window, as the only action one can perform on it is closing it). But it
>>>> behaves at least consistently: clicking on either the main window close
>>>> button or the "child window" close button closes the main window.
>>>
>>> The problem with this of course is that it is very difficult for most
>>> people to quickly ascertain which tab is a "child" tab and which is the
>>> "mother".
>>
>> First, there are no tabs.
>
> I would appreciate it if you tried to understand the gist of what I am
> saying rather than being semantically picayune. :-)
Sorry, but I did try to understand. There just was no way for me to parse
that in the way you intended it.
> I was referring to the "tabs" or "buttons" or whatever they are
> officially called that all appear on the Windows taskbar, for each open
> MS Word document. One document open = one "button", 10 documents open =
> 10 "buttons")
There are no "child" and "mother" buttons in the task bar, so they don't
have to be distinguished from each other. There are always only top level
window buttons. This means that when Word is configured to run in MDI mode,
there's always only one Word button in the task bar (the single top level
window, which has document child windows inside). When Word is configured
to run in SDI mode, every open document has its own top level window, and
therefore has a task bar button that goes with it.
So the affirmation that it is difficult for people to distinguish between
"child" and "mother" buttons doesn't really make sense, because they don't
have to. In the task bar there are always only top level window buttons,
and whether there's always only one or always one for each open document
depends on the Word configuration (and if you don't change that, works
always the same).
>> Second, this is not a problem at all, because the only thing that
>> remains from the degenerated child window is the close button, and it
>> works the same way as the main window close button: it closes the main
>> window (all valid for SDI mode only, of course).
>
> Just taking the MS Word 2003 example, what you are saying above implies
> that if I have 10 MS Word "buttons" on the Explorer taskbar (because I
> have MS Word 2003 running with 10 open documents), that if I close a
> single "button", then it will close the entire application? This hasn't
> been my observation of how that application works.
No, this is not implied. If you have Word configured to run in SDI mode and
open 10 documents, you have 10 top level Word windows open, each one with
its own task bar button. Each one also has two "close window" buttons
(inside its window): one is the title bar "X" button, the other is right
below, the close button of the degenerated child window inside the
application window. (I say "degenerated" because the only thing left of it
is this close button.) Both close buttons close their associated top level
Word window (but only this one, no the other nine).
Maybe it helps to stop thinking about "application" and start thinking
about "window" when talking about windows. "Application" is not a useful
concept in this context. The multiple Word top level windows you see with
Word in SDI mode are just this: independent top level windows. That they
belong to the same application is not relevant in this context.
Gerhard
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