Hacker News Reader

Comment by GekkePrutser | Hacker News Reader

Totally agree except the MDI (Multiple Document Interface) was a really dumb idea. Having windows inside of windows. Now that I see the double window controls I remember how bad and confusing that was. And so much work moving all these scroll bars trying to reach other scroll bars inside them. Yuck.

Besides for MDI which a lot of MS apps suffered from, it was great.

View on HN

> the MDI (Multiple Document Interface) was a really dumb idea. Having windows inside of windows.

Funny, to me tabbed browsing has always seemed like a reinvention of the same concept.

Tabbed browsing just has full-window tabs though. Was the ability to resize, move, and stack these windows within windows ever wanted by any significant amount of people, or is tabbed browsing just a better implementation of the same concept (multiple "documents" open within one window)?

except without the "tile" or "cascade" or just drag and drop rearrangement of them

I loved MDI, and was actually frustrated with the somewhat watered down Office 97 version of it.

It's like tabs, but you can also put dialogs side by side.

Well it did have its benefits yes. However it was a total PITA if you wanted to work in 2 documents on 2 different screens. You had to stretch the window across both screens and then position the sub-windows manually. You couldn't just plonk each on a display and maximise.

And scrolling regions within scrolling regions really are awful IMO.

Well, you've got a point about multi-display. Once that came around, it lost its appeal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com