Hacker News Reader

Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

I'd rather block them.

I, for one, detest the new trend of every website trying to invent its own windowing manager. "New Compose" is the perfect example of this. I don't want every website creating its own internal windows that I can't move, resize, or control with the same power that my windowing manager (whether via X11, Aqua, or whatever Windows uses) gives me.

For me, if a popup is at all useful, I'd rather have it pop up in a separate window (and then I can move it back into a tab easily if I like it.

And if it's not useful, just kill it from the onset. (One of my extensions - probably AdBlock - seems to do a good job of determining this, for me).

View on HN

MDI is an abomination on the desktop, and it's no less so in the browser.

What 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.

Do you have a problem with those too?

I'm not a big fan, no.

Tabs 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.

To 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.

Chrome 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.

That's nitpicking, we all know the term MDI refers to MS Windows style Window manager within a Window.

No it doesn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_document_interface

How should the browser determine if the popup is useful or not?

  int isPopupUseful()
  {
    return FALSE; // 96% accurate
  }

I'd say 96% is being a tad conservative.

Couldn't they use something similar to a spam filter?

They appear to block all popups except those caused by a direct click by the user. I think that's why some websites spam popup windows when you make your first click.

You can solve the "New Compose" problem (just freaking revert back to the previous behavior, GMail), without re-enabling the abomination that was browser popups.

I am not necessarily taking a stance for or against New Compose here, but I am taking the stance that your advice is somewhat near-sighted.

Here's a little experiment that demonstrates why: name "Revert to Previous Behavior" modes in any major webapp that has been around more than 6 months after the new behavior was rolled out to everyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com