Subject: Re: Multiple instances of Abi
From: Randy Kramer (rhkramer@fast.net)
Date: Sun Aug 19 2001 - 15:21:05 CDT
Paul Rohr wrote:
> At 04:23 PM 8/19/01 +0000, David Chart wrote:
> >Nils said that we should use an existing instance of Abi if there is
> >one, and that doing otherwise is a bug.
> >
> >It's only a bug if we really aren't using SDI.
>
> Yep. We aren't using SDI, and for an MSDI application, this would be a
> pretty annoying bug. This is already implemented for Win32, and way back
> when (IIRC) Shaw had some pretty reasonable ideas way of how to implement it
> on Unix. If that work never got completed, by all means file a bug.
I feel like I've missed some messages in this thread, but, if "this is
already implemented for Win32" means that two instances of MSDI cannot
run in parallel, I think there's a bug in the Windows version of
AbiWord. I can start two independent instances of AbiWord (by, for
example, double clicking on the executable multiple times), and suspect
I can start many more.
(BTW, some of my description of the behavior of AbiWord in an earlier
post was in error -- to open a second window on the same document in
AbiWord (within the same original instance), you must use Window --> New
Window -- you cannot do it by File --> Open and then choosing the same
document. In that case, you get a dialog box "Revert to saved copy of
<file>?". Sorry! (That's what I get for depending on my memory.)
> I've not seen any use cases where it would be preferable to have two MSDI
> instances running in parallel. Instead, each new document launched should
> use OS-specific means to detect and reuse the existing instance, so that the
> cross-document features (autosave, window menu, duplicate detection, etc.)
> all Just Work.
The only use case I can think of is a very degenerate one, included here
only for some sort of overzealous completeness, or as a reminder to
Microsoft -- if something happens to crash the one instance of the MSDI
program (e.g., IE5) (or, to be fair, the "main window" in an MDI), all
your open windows are lost (well, only closed in the case of a web
browser, but aggravating because I may not be finished with them). If
it happens in a word processor it will be that much worse. When I'm
feeling especially paranoid, I do open multiple instances of IE5 just
for this reason. (I guess I used to think that was the advantage of an
SDI, but now, with the introduction of the MSDI I am no longer certain.
I'll have to go back and read your other post again.)
Randy Kramer
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