4 ms·
MDI is an abomination on the desktop, and it's no less so in the browser.
by jfb 14y ago
MDI is an abomination on the desktop, and it's no less so in the browser.
- notacoward 14y agoWhat you're referring to is not just MDI. TDI is usually considered a subset of MDI, so tabbed browsers are MDI. Ditto for emacs/vim are MDI, even though they're text, and screen/tmux are MDI wrappers for other programs. Do you have a problem with those too? The problem at hand is not MDI but broken MDI that implements a different interface or context than the top-level desktop. That's a problem regardless of whether the model is SDI, TDI, or other MDI. You seem to hate the overlapping-window "other MDI" model in any context, which is fine but slightly orthogonal.
- jfb 14y agoDo you have a problem with those too? I'm not a big fan, no.
- mikeash 14y agoTabs and the other things you describe are good only as long as you can split stuff out into its own window. Tabbed browsers I've used do this, as does screen. Don't know about the others, as I haven't used them. If tabs were held captive within their original window forever, I'd find them terribly annoying.
- SkyMarshal 14y agoTo nitpick: I've never considered TDI to be a subset of MDI, but rather MDI a superset of SDI and TDI. MDI implies a level of control and configuration not remotely possible with the other two.
- WayneDB 14y agoChrome itself is a multiple document interface. So is every other tabbed interface. So is every other program that allows you to interface with multiple documents.