[Lazarus] debug windows layout

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

David W Noon schrieb:

>>>> All this docking talk is nice and everything, but sometimes I ask
>>>> if shouldn't just go SDI for Lazarus IDE. I found it odd at the
>>>> beginning, but after using several other SDI IDEs now I can't find
>>>> reasoning in Delphi-old MDI...
>>> I think you meant other way round. :-) Old Delphi 7 and earlier used
>>> SDI interface by default.
>> No, that's neither MDI nor SDI.
> 
> Actually, Graeme is correct.
> 
> Each of the discrete windows contains a single "document", so it is
> called a Single Document Interface.

Perhaps we should distinguish between windows and applications. When an 
application opens multiple windows, every window can be SDI or MDI.

At the *window* (technology) level we can determine whether MDI client 
windows exist. So far Delphi or Lazarus *never* have been MDI applications.

At the *application* level IMO SDI indicates one single application 
window, like implemented by most IDE's (RS, VS...). An IDE can contain 
multiple projects (solutions...), and a project can consist of multiple 
source files, but only one of them is accessible at the same time.


> If you have a copy of Visual BASIC 6 handy, you can switch that IDE
> between MDI and SDI to see this effect. [Earlier versions of VB were
> SDI only for the IDE, but could easily produce MDI or SDI apps.]

AFAIR that was like RadStudio now can be switched between new "standard" 
and "classic undocked" views, and the new (monolithic) view is called "SDI".

> Back in the late 1980s, when IBM and Microsoft were both involved with
> OS/2 development, both companies came to the conclusion that MDI
> sucked.  This was because one cannot get through to one's desktop
> without minimizing, or at least shrinking, the MDI parent, thus losing
> display of all documents simultaneously.  More than 20 years on, this
> problem remains with MDI, but software companies still produce MDI
> applications.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. ... :-(

You seem to associate MDI with a single application window. IMO this 
view neglects both the "document" and "interface" aspects.

DoDi