Subject: split windows (was Re: Word 2000 copies Paul :-))
From: Paul Rohr (paul@abisource.com)
Date: Mon Aug 20 2001 - 00:54:54 CDT
At 12:05 PM 8/20/01 +1000, Martin Sevior wrote:
>MSFT have also kept the "split" window option which gives two windows into
>the same document within the same frame. This is a useful feature for
>cutting and pasting bits from different sections of a large document. I
>use it all the time in emacs. At some stage I think Abi should acquire
>this feature too.
This would make for a nice meaty POW ... post-1.0, of course. We've always
had the ability to open multiple views on the same document (via Window /
New Window), each in their own top-level window.
However, AFAICT this functionality is rarely used, and hasn't been
thoroughly tested. Worse, many developers who submit patches to
abi/src/text/* don't take this possibility into account -- heck, just
getting undo right is a challenge -- thus making the feature more bug-prone
over time.
Still, conceptually it's not too difficult to imagine improving that work to
allow a frame to parent multiple views of the same document. IIRC, Jeff
mentioned that some of the focus and toolbar/menu state notification
dispatching logic would need to be upgraded for this. The other trick would
be to get the XP vs. platform work factored properly when packing the
frame's widgets together.
As I said, a very meaty POW, but a lot of the hardest work is done.
Paul
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