GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 89883
Make multiple windows more usable
Last modified: 2005-12-15 22:56:52 UTC
Currently, the only MDI Gedit supports is a tabbed interface. I realize this is the MDI de jour, but it can be annoying, especially if there is no alternative. Here's a few reasons why: - It takes up screen real-estate. Not much, but on a low res screen or on a crowded desktop, it uses an annoying amount. - There is no way to view two documents, side by side. This is a real killer, I can't even seem to open two copies of gedit to acheive this. - No way to get a different view on the same document. - Some people just prefer other MDIs. So, can we have the ability to: a) Open multiple top-level frames. b) Turn off tabs, or even better, just make the tab-bar appear when multiple tabs are in use (a la Mozilla). Cheers.
Actually, gedit already has this feature. Try either: a) Open more than one document, and drag a tab outside the window. This should create a new window with that document in it. b) launch 'gedit --new-window filename.txt', and that will also do what you want.
Eeeek! How is anyone supposed to discover this? In fact, discoverability isn't the only problem here. For starters, you're overloading a widget (the tab/tabbar) to do both something which is *very* suprising (breaking POLA) and something it really shouldn't be responsible for. It's also probably infringing on an Adobe patent or two. :) Next, there isn't any real drag feedback anyway, so if you try to play with dragging tabs around, it doesn't look like anything is happening, and you give up - as I did. There's no way to open a new frame window from the gedit itself ("File" > "New Window", anyone?), and given that 99.99% of all users will open gedit from a menu or launcher, the "--new-window" arg is useless. Lastly, there's still no way to get rid of the tabs.
Which Adobe patents?
The one (or more) that they successfully sued Macromedia over - it covers tragging a tab off a pallet and having it turn into it's own window, the dragging it back and having it turn back into a tab. Do a search for "Adobe" on /. - there was at least a few stories on it. I've got no real idea if it is actual problem or not, IANAL, etc, etc.
I agree that there really should be a "new window" menu item, I never noticed that gedit supported that even if I already tried to drag tabs (but not outside the main window)
Probably we should add a context menu on the tabs: Move to a new window -------- Save Save As -------- Print -------- Close
*** Bug 102310 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
When I use gedit it is rarely for more than one document at a time. I would much prefer if Tabs were not shown when you only have one document open. In the meantime I will have to change my launchers to include gedit --new-window
This is a documentation problem as well as a functional problem. I learned of the launch parameter in a bugzilla discussion, and this is the first time I have heard of the drag and drop method, which is much easier for me than the launch parameter. Please mention both in the gedit documentation. Also, an Open new window command in the File menu would be appreciated.
Note that there is already "Move to New Window" in the Documents menu. You can also riht click when you are on a tab.
We have move to new windows in the menu, in the tab popup menu and in the sidepane document list popup menu. Also tab are now draggable and reorderable. I don't see any point in keeping this bug open anymore. The only other point I see made here is 'but I prefer SDI'. That one is tracked in bug #105196.