I have been thinking hard about the MDI vs. SDI question that is a topic of great debate. Here are my thoughts (flame if you must -

Background: I don't program in c, so I can't help directly, sorry. I do have a fairly good understanding of programming in general and understand what's "easy", "hard", what make sense from the users POV, and the same from the programmers POV. I do program some in Euphoria (www.rapideuphoria.com). Opera is my current browser of choice for numerous reasons. If I had voted in the last US Presidential election, it would likely have been for Nader (IE vs. NETSCAPE, BUSH vs. GORE "Please sir, can we have a third choice?" ).

1. K-meleon is designed to support plugins.
2. Winamp has options to only show its task bar button, only show a systray icon, both , or neither (the only way to get back is to launch a shortcut to winamp).
3. Can K-meleon do the same, possibly through its plugin interface?
4. If it did, can the systray icon have a window sub menu, or just be the window menu?
5. Again assuming #3, can a plugin be written build a MDI toobar into K-meleon like the winamp k-meleon plugin?

I know the current developers answer to MDI has been a flat-out no, but what if we just shortcutted around SDI vs. MDI by having K-Meleon OPTIONALLY hide its taskbar buttons? And I am thinking of working in Euphoria to interface with K-Meleon in some way.

-=Gonzotek=-

Well, if you want such functionality - check out

http://www.beesknees.freeserve.co.uk/software/

They have a program called firestarter, which does exacly this, run it with the program you want and it hides all of its tasks in the taskbar. There is also full source, so if you or another developer wants a quick fix solution to the MDI vs. SDI issue, then check it out.

I honestly think that this is still far from functional. It still denies the user any of the benefits of MDI, it only removes the clutter from the task bar, which is a start I suppose...... But better document management is still the goal. SDI simply does not offer that, and task hiding neither...

If you want to make an analogy between political parties and browsers, than I'd align Mozilla a lot more with Nader (open source, free development, etc.)

I see your point, and agree with you. I was only alluding to the fact that we have a third choice in Opera. Mozilla is still ever-so-slightly immature for third parties to start using its open-source goodness, with K-meleon being a great exception.


Back to MDI vs. SDI....I found a program called Smart Explorer, www.smarteque.com/ , that wraps around IE which features an MDI interface. It's shareware, but the free trial allows you to try all the features out (and it has plenty).

Notable remarks (my own):
~Better than Opera because:
+ IE is the most "compatible" browser (no arguments please, its not my fault that website authors write code to match the the broken standards IE supports)
+ It has (rather surprsingly) better window handling capabilities
+ It has tools like a menu to turn off images, sounds, java, etc, also has a history cleaner that seems pretty spiffy (haven't tested it yet).
+It has a task bar icon that can hide the program instead of closing it. If you're like me you always have at least one browser session open for something.

~Worse than Opera because:
-No mouse gestures (I use Opera's constanly, and find myself attempting to use them in other programs)
-No builtin mail, news, and messaging (although it has a configuable mail menu, eg takes you to hotmail or opens a mail client)
-No builtin download manager


~Better than Netscape/Mozilla because:
+ IE is the most "compatible" browser ...
+ ?

~Worse than Netscape/Mozilla
- Not open-source
- ?


I won't compare it to IE directly, simply because it was created to wrap IE in MDI, and you'll have to try it yourselfs ...The list is just off the top-of-my-head...I'm sure there are countless other plusses and minuses to each browser

Anyway, Smart Explorer and Opera have some nice differences from the Big-Name browsers and team K-Meleon should compare what they do with what K-meleon should be doing in it's final release.

-=Gonzotek=-

The problem with wrappers for IE, is that although the User Interface can be made wonderful - the BIG problem with Internet Explorer is that security issues are far more important. With the default settings, and with a machine that doesn't have the latest fixes, there are a whole bag of vunerabilities. ActiveX can be hugely dangerous, and lets not forget that it is Microsoft who have single-handedly been responsible for script-viruses. The IE engine is compatible and powerful, but can also be more dangerous. And you are still using IE technology, soif smart tags etc.come into play, they will do in the many Shells available for the IE engine...

p.s. doesn't Opera have a history cleaner, and an Image / Java turn on/off options too?)

Opera does have that stuff, but it isn't convienent in the way Smrat Explorer makes it. It has keyboard shortcuts for everything, but I have trouble remembering more than the 150 (just a guess) one I know from every other program. K-Meleon has the opportunity to be lite, powerful, and secure.

Isn't the big difference between K-Meleon and the Mozilla trunk going to be the UI? The sharing of the rendering engine will make any webpage look the same in K-Meleon as Mozilla. Shouldn't the UI be powerful, yet elegant (and of course still lite)?

BTW, Moz is at .92, when will K-Meleon be updated?


-=Gonzotek=-


p.s. I know that since I can't directly contribute to K-Meleon, I can't expect anyone to make a change for me. I just think discussion about it is useful, I hope I don't seem like a crackpot .