[Lmuse-developer] first MDI-proof-of-concept

[Florian J. <flo...@we...>]

Hi

i've commited a first POC to the newly created 
^/branches/mdi-proofofconcept branch.
(you probably should create the build directory from scratch, even if 
svn-switching; you anyway need to recompile almost everything because i 
changed app.h and cobject.h, and from my experience you're experiencing 
very strange bugs otherwise)

it's hacked together in a really short time and thus quite buggy.
however it already shows how the "dynamic toolbar/menu" stuff will work.

try opening muse, creating some part in the arranger, opening a ScoreEdit
and after that a PianoRoll (in that order!). Then arrange the windows so
you can see and access both, and switch between them around. You will see
that parts of the menu bar, and also the toolbars will change.

I'm planning to make the toolbars remember their state (hidden or not,
position) on a per-window-class basis, and to somehow make the menus more
similar (that is, the menu bar itself won't change when changing windows,
only the menus change). The arranger will be a dedicated window (then it
will regain its controls again ;) ).

There is a bug, making muse show the "Marker window"'s controls when no 
other window is selected.
also, i'd prefer if "defocus the muse main window" would NOT mean 
"defocus the active child" as well; atm, if you defocus muse, the menu 
gets much smaller. other bugs are that you only can resize most windows 
on the top or left edge or topleft corner, that the pianoroll doesn't 
show the controls when started (it does, however, when switching to 
another window and back). then, when switching between windows, the 
toolbar's height changes; i'll maybe make the toolbar's height fixed 
(which however would waste a bit space, but not much), optionally of course.

then i'll add window arrangement functions like "Cascade", "Tile" etc.



for finding out the advantage of this concept over muse's current sdi 
concept, try the following:
create MIDI two tracks and one part for each track
think of the first track as "melody", of the second as "harmony"; now, 
given that you already have some harmony, but now need a melody, and 
given that you prefer reading notes in a score, but want to enter new 
notes in a pianoroll (which is most convenient to me)

in new muse, you can open the harmony part in a score editor, and the 
melody part in a pianoroll editor. now you hide the arranger (which will 
be a window later), and arrange the windows in a 1x2-grid 
(menu->arrange->some menu entry will do that soon). you now have always 
your harmonics in view, and can easily edit your melody; and in case you 
need to change your harmony at some location, you simply go to the score 
edit window, change the harmony, and go on.

in old muse, you'd have to arrange the two created toplevel windows by 
hand, because your window manager doesn't know which windows you need 
and which not. after arranging them, you will waste valueable space, 
because you have one unnecessary menu bar and probably (on my screen) 
two unneccessary toolbars in the score edit (that's almost one stave's 
height!)
of course, you could make the pianoroll window bigger so it overlaps the 
score window, hiding these unneccessary controls. but this is a) 
inconvenient (compared to menu->arrange windows->foo) and b) makes it 
harder to quickly edit your harmony, because you have to select the 
score window by clicking right into it (remember, you've hidden menu, 
tool- and titlebar), having to hope that you don't destroy some note.



if you prefer to work in a fullscreen window, and always worked in a 
fullscreen window with old muse, new muse can do exactly that even more 
comfortable.
you simply open the editor you need and maximize it. this will provide 
you *exactly* the same interface as with old muse, except that you have 
an additional "File", "Settings" and "Help" menu. these don't take away 
space, but are useful when you quickly want to save, for example. in old 
muse, you'd have to switch back and forth until you found the main 
window, in new muse that's one click.


once i've done the "fixed menus" stuff, there will be an additional 
advantage: you don't have to remember five different menu layouts for 
five different editors, but menu is always aligned in the same way on 
the top of the screen


if you then decide that you don't need muse right now, because you want 
to check your mails, or set up some external synthesizer, you can simply 
minimize ONE window. in old muse, you have to minimize all windows 
you've opened. also, your task bar looks nicer with only one muse 
instance and not so scattered, which makes it easier to find the 
non-muse-window you want. switching back to muse is also easier, because 
you don't have to guess which of the five muse windows is your current 
working window, but simply click on the one muse main window, which 
still has your working window active.



i hope you see the advantages of this concept.
i think we really should add it permanently to muse, maybe even as only 
interface (if a two-i.face-solution gets too complicated), because 
everything possible with old muse is possible with new muse plus some 
extra goodies ;)

please tell me what you think, give tips for improving
if you have an idea for a two-i.face-solution, please tell me... my 
current ideas aren't quite well-engineered

greetings
flo