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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
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Friday, July 11, 2003
16:03 - Why I hate MDI

(top) link
MDI, the Multi-Document Interface, is one of those "innovations" that purportedly makes Windows just so much more convenient and simple to grasp than its nameless competitors. The idea is that you have a "container" window, which can take up an arbitrary amount of screen space, including being maximized to the logical borders of the screen; then, inside the big gray box that the container window forms, you can have an arbitrary number of other windows-- open documents-- that can be moved around within the application's own virtual space. Just like windows on the desktop, document windows in MDI can be overlapped and moved out of the visible screen area.

This is supposed to make it so you can group your application's controls in a modal fashion, so you can control multiple documents within the same application, or show and hide the whole lot of them, with all their functionality subservient to the app itself-- while making the application subservient to the top-level control metaphor of the desktop. Web browsers shun MDI, as well they should; though often it would be nice if you could control all your browser windows at once, or shut down the whole browser app. (The Mac OS, since the active application takes over the whole desktop space and the global menu bar, provides for this functionality and obviates the need for MDI.) But other apps, like Word and Photoshop and Excel, don't; they heartily embrace MDI, regardless of little complicating elements like sharing files between computers with different desktop settings and unalterable anchor positions against the top and left and so on.

So: could someone please explain to me exactly what the flying fart I'm supposed to do with this?



Whee! The document window is too large to show completely in the MDI window, even if I maximize Excel. Not only that, but all its control surfaces which can be used for moving or resizing the window are inaccessible.

I guess I need a bigger monitor!

Either that, or Window->Arrange. Ugh. While Panther is moving the bar with Exposé, when it comes to Excel I'm stuck in 1992.


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