#365 switch away from MDI

[Anonymous]

Originally created by: a...@anse.de
Originally owned by: a...@anse.de

Reported as bug #1522477 by nobody@sf on 2006-07-14 04:11

Please drop the MDI interface.

Others have abandoned MDI a long time ago, most notably
the Microsoft Office suite.
Some are keeping MDI around, for example Microsoft SQL
Server Management Studio, and it's a horrible interface
;-).
(Although the ability to open multiple custom tabs is
neat.  Albeit that's not so well implemented either..)

An example of a working non-MDI application is
SecureCRT, which also has the notion of connecting to
different hosts, much like HeidiSQL.  Lots of
improvements can be added on top of that, for example
it would be nice if you could visually see in the
'connections' window which servers are currently
connected to by other windows, and switch to them.

Reasons for dropping MDI.

a)
First and foremost, it's clumsy.

For example, it's clumsy because you end up with
multiple connections in one window when you click
'connect' from inside HeidiSQL, but in multiple windows
if you use the HeidiSQL icon from quicklaunch / desktop.

b)
It doesn't integrate with taskbar grouping.

c)
There's no upfront way of getting an overview of which
connections are open in background MDI windows.

(SQL Server Management Studio has this, and it
integrates horribly with other functions in the app.
Implementing this is way too much work and way too
little gain, if any at all, compared to just using a
non-MDI interface.)

d)
If something goes wrong with one connection and you
have to terminate HeidiSQL, you'll loose all of your
work in other MDI windows.

e)
It's probably less error-prone to code a non-MDI interface.

f)
Probably more reasons.  The above will do for now, I
think :-).

**** Comment 1 by mattias78@sf, 2007-02-05 02:55

I disagree with the original reporter and think this is a big drawback
with RC4.
In previous versions, the choice whether to use MDI or separate windows is
up to the user, since you can always launch another instance. Now we are
forced to fill the loaded taskbar with even more tasks.

I don't use the taskbar grouping because I really think THAT is really
clumsy. If I have 2 Word documents and 4 IE windows opened and need to
switch between them, I don't want to have to click twice for every switch.

Instead I prefer to use the applications themselves as groupings. For
example, I may open one HeidiSQL instance with 3 MDI sessions and another
instance with 2 sessions to a different group of servers or dealing with a
different project.

Although MDI has been abandoned by some, tabs (which from a user
perspective is merely "a form of" MDI) are being more and more popular.
With Firefox or IE 7, you can group open pages in the same, personal
manner, such as one IE 7/Firefox instance for work related pages and
another for personal pages.

So please, give us back at least the option to group multiple connections
in one window.
Thank you.

**** Comment 2 by mattias78@sf, 2007-02-05 03:04

Oh, and another thing: With MDI you can cycle the open sessions with
Ctrl+Tab. In RC4 you have to cycle with Alt+Tab which (of course) includes
ALL your windows, not just your SQL sessions.

**** Comment 3 by rosenfield@sf, 2007-02-05 07:30

> Now we are forced to fill the loaded taskbar with even more tasks.
>
> I don't use the taskbar grouping because I really think THAT is
> really clumsy. If I have 2 Word documents and 4 IE windows opened
> and need to switch between them, I don't want to have to click
> twice for every switch.

Presumably Microsoft will fix this at some point.
Have you tried Windows Vista?

> Instead I prefer to use the applications themselves as groupings.
> For example, I may open one HeidiSQL instance with 3 MDI sessions
> and another instance with 2 sessions to a different group of
> servers or dealing with a different project.

There's a lot more reasons for abandoning MDI than against.  Your
personal preference doesn't way in heavy against all the practical
reasons - sorry!

> Although MDI has been abandoned by some, tabs (which from a user
> perspective is merely "a form of" MDI) are being more and more
> popular.  With Firefox or IE 7, you can group open pages in the
> same, personal manner, such as one IE 7/Firefox instance for
> work related pages and another for personal pages.

Hopefully we'll have multiple tabs soon.
They'll probably all relate to the same session, though,
so I guess it's not what you're looking for.

If you want another session (another server), you'll probably
still have to open up another window.  Simply because multiple
sessions / servers per window clutters up the user interface
needlessly.

> With MDI you can cycle the open sessions with Ctrl+Tab. In RC4
> you have to cycle with Alt+Tab which (of course) includes ALL
> your windows, not just your SQL sessions.

There's no reason that we couldn't add Ctrl-Tab as a switch to
cycle between HeidiSQL windows, even if they're not MDI.

Feel free to download the source code and implement this ;-).

**** Comment 4 by mattias78@sf, 2007-02-06 00:10

> > I don't use the taskbar grouping because I really think THAT is
> > really clumsy. If I have 2 Word documents and 4 IE windows opened
> > and need to switch between them, I don't want to have to click
> > twice for every switch.

> Presumably Microsoft will fix this at some point.

You mean like they did when they added tabs in IE 7...?
;-)

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: rosenfie... (code.google.com)@gmail.com

(No comment was entered for this change.)

Labels: -priority-default Severity-Default