To: Nathan Summers
Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Integrated Scripting

I've used plenty of applications where the Windows menu does double-duty, with the kinds of windows that can be opened, followed by a separator, followed by the current open windows. Come to think of it, I'd say the only apps that I've used that don't do it that way are ones were all the windows are the same kind, anyway.

what windows/dialogs are shown or not shown but in this case it is not at all pratical.

At least to me, the View menu is for stuff that affects this particular view of this particular image, not dialogs and windows unrelated to it.

Some simpler applications use the View items globally so that if you turn off the View of the status bar the next window will not have a statusbar but already open windows will remain unaffected. (this is a simplification I'd like to seem more applications make use of, but it slightly reduceds flexibility so I have been reluctant to suggest it for the gimp)

And we should actually consider to add a Windows menu that lists all open GIMP windows.

Listing all the open window list might help reduce the requests for a tabbed interface to the gimp many of which seem to be due to difficulties in managing lots of open windows.

That would be a nice feature to have, but I don't think it would be a complete substitution for tabs.

I'm not a fan of tabs. All too often the task list and window management are being reinvented for every app. My comment was basically a bit of a pot shot at Tabbed interfaces (a lot of users want them everywhere because they work well in the web browser) and encouragement to anyone who might want to implement the feature because I do agree it is a useful feature.

Later

- Alan H.