Re: Single vs. Multi Window UI -- Was: Re: [K3d-development] A Good Project for Someone!

[Timothy M. S. <ts...@k-...>]

Anders Dahnielson wrote:

> Here's some of my ideas:
> 
> * Application Window: 
> 
> Merge the functionality of the (now tiny) application window into the
> document window. When the application starts it will contain the default
> document, if the user open a document without modifying the default
> document no new window will be opened and the new document will replace
> the default one. When the last document are closed, the merged
> application/document window will contain the default document again. Or
> something similar along those lines, much like a single-window UI would
> handle it, to get rid of the tiny application window without loosing the
> multi-document capability.

<snip/>

All very reasonable suggestions.  The distinction between "default" and 
"actual" documents with this design seems like it would cause confusion 
to me, but this does suggest a simpler alternative, which would be to 
get rid of the Application Window as you suggest, and decree that 
whenever the last Document Window is closed, the application exits.  If 
you open the application without any arguments, you get a new document.

Having said this, I think we need to stick with moving to a true 
one-window UI, due to the groundswell of support for that design.  I've 
been looking back at time I've spent working with LightWave, and I have 
to give them credit for a very-well-thought-out UI, where the controls 
you need access to are always right where you need them.

This is the kind of work that doesn't really interest me, which is why I 
haven't done it in the past - like a lot of engineers, I tend to be 
feature-oriented, which is why we have the multi-window UI.  It wasn't 
that I sat down one day and decided "I prefer a multi-window UI", it was 
just the easiest one to create so I could get on with the business of 
writing plugins.

There's one *huge* change in the way we're looking at the world now with 
K-3D that I don't think I've articulated adequately, and that is the 
move away from "everything is a plugin".  Historically I've turned my 
nose up at "hard-coded" features within the program, which led to plugin 
"tools" such as the Freehand tool, which was used to create polygons 
manually.  The problem has been that it's very, very difficult to 
develop a model for user input that can handle all the different "tools" 
in an elegant way.  As a result, we haven't had elegant tools.  So, just 
like the Gimp, which has a toolbox of built-ins that are interactive, 
one thing we need to plan for is a similar toolbox in K-3D for all the 
highly-interactive stuff that will be closely-integrated into the UI layer.

Cheers,
Tim