For the sake of asking, how do we handle apps like the gimp where
multiple dialogs are shared among different windows withough csdi?

I agree with Greg. The GIMP exists, and it ain't gonna change for
no-one, but we shouldn't be encouraging this sort of interface.
There's already too many popping up following GIMP's bad example. I
tried to convince GIMP developers to do the same trick as GNOME does
with toolbars with a menubar in each image window, but they weren't
going for it. Their loss (and ours too, I know).

wrt to Dave's question, toolboxes and pallettes can be shared between
multiple windows without having the toolbox itself be the primary
"controlling" window as in CSDI.

If we remove CSDI I think we should still acknowledge it and take a
stance ("No"), and then provide suggestions on how to achieve the
goals of CSDI without doing CSDI.

Calum... any strong desire to keep CSDI?

Uhm, there's a menubar in every GIMP image window (at least unless you
did not explicitely disable this in the prefs). Are you guys actually
looking at the GIMP user interface or do you just talk?

I believe at the time of this bug's opening GIMP didn't have a menubar
in every image window; I know current releases have this now.  Thanks
to the GIMP developers for their great work.

So we need to drop GIMP as our example, however the change still needs
to be made to the HIG. Anyone?  Bueller, Bueller, Bueller...

Hmm, my last comment on this bug seems to have been mysteriously
lost... anyway, all it said was that I made the first part of the
change (commenting out most of the CSDI section) to the HIG last week,
and now I (or anyone else who's interested) just need to write up
something sensible to replace it.

IMO the HIG would do itself a favor by not removing this part but
improving it instead. Applications such as The GIMP could need some
advice on how to organize their windows. Telling them to ditch their
user interface completely will only cause people to ignore the HIG.

I haven't removed the section altogether, I pretty much agree with
Seth that its new aim should be to "acknowledge it and take a stance,
and then provide suggestions on how to achieve the goals of CSDI
without doing CSDI".  I'm not sure what those suggestions will be yet,
but I don't think they necessarily have to be too removed from what
you're asking for.

well in the gimps case it could make its pallette globally transient
to all gimp document windows instead of it being the control window of
the document windows. I believe the inkspace developers are doing this.

Now tell me how to sanely implement "globally transient". I believe
that the Inkscape developers are badly abusing the transient
relationship. I consider their solution a bad hack that violates the
principles of window management.

CSDIs attempt to emulate a feature of MacOS, the permanence of the
application. Many, if not all, MacOS applications do not quit when
the last document has closed. They continue running, visible as the
items of the menubar and an item on the application menu. Thus they
may display palettes and the like though these windows are not tied
to any documents. Because GNOME does not have a global menubar or an
application menu, an application such as the GIMP cannot maintain a
usable presence in the absence of a document, unless it provides a
few controls in some non-document window. The smallest set of
controls to provide a usable presence contains a document opening
command (e.g., New or Open) and a Quit command. Because the main
palette is almost always wanted when using the application, the
basic controls (and others) have been placed in a menubar on the
main palette window.

If there's another reason for CSDI, please state it so the HIG's
admonishment may address it.

Seems obsolete. CSDI is mostly a thing of the past, and we don't reference it in the HIG any more. The GIMP is heading in the direction of having a single primary window.