Windows separate on the task bar

akirk · Post by **akirk** » 22 Nov 2003 16:25

A wish of mine is to have the several windows which are open showing as separate icons on the task bar.

At present all windows which are open are either seen sequentially by viewing one or another through the menu, or alternatively they can be cascaded, or tiled horizontally and vertically.

If instead they were each seen as new instances of family historian windows on the task bar, then it would be possible to view each on a separate monitor if using a multiple monitor machine.

At present it seems possible to open more than one instance of the software, each 'opening' the default GEDCOM, (presumably the software doesn't lock the file?), but without knowing the effect, I would be nervous to have two windows writing simultaneously to the same file.

Alasdair Kirk

ID:179

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 22 Nov 2003 17:10

I suspect this might be hard fought one.

The MDI interface which Fh uses has the advantage of keeping the taskbar clear, personally I do not like the SDI format you are suggesting and from a coding point of view I don't think you can support both at once. As you point out you can open multi-copies of FH, but as the program loads the file into memory to work on it only the last one saved would have changes. (remember I do not have any connection to the developers so this is just my opinion)

akirk · Post by **akirk** » 21 Dec 2003 16:33

I agree that this is an issue with which not all will agree. However, the MS standard now seems to be the SDI standard, no longer the MDI...

I often work with more than one monitor to show two views on the same file at the same time, often this is two computers, where there is no issue, as long as one of them is a copy as you say, and not for changing.

I am very keen on computers enabling us where possible, and genealogy software is good at this, but it does have weaknesses - using paper, one can easily see more than one part of a tree at a time, or have two different sections printed, or two different trees for comparison. With a large tree, this is very difficult on the computer, especially where cousins have married and there are relationships between the left and right of the tree!

regards

Alasdair Kirk

jeremyhills · Post by **jeremyhills** » 28 Dec 2003 17:57

I use two monitors, from thje same computer, and the only window I can get to move to the second monitor is the property dialog (shouldn't this be dialogue!)

Jeremyhills

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 29 Dec 2003 18:13

I spend much of life working with development systems in American english. This does not help me remember to add the extra letters for English english. When programming I write programs, using dialog boxes and colors.

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