Image Composer

Author

MDI

Jan Kucera

2006-11-19, 6:30 pm

Hi again,
My todays question is - have you ever used the MDI possibilities of Image
Composer? If, then how?

For those you don't know, Image Composer is a MDI application - however you
can have only one document opened at the time. (More windows of that one.) I
don't find this bad, I'm just a little curious if you have tried it. ;-)

Jan

walter666

2006-11-19, 6:30 pm

What is MDI?

Jan Kucera

2006-11-19, 6:30 pm

Oh sorry,
MDI stands for Multiple Document Interface. This means that you have one
application window and more "children windows" in it. On the other hand, SDI
is Single Document Interface to which tends today's ...easier software most
often.

In practical point of view in MDI applications you have something like
Window menu, with list of opened windows. An example of MDI application is
Excel or PhotoShop, where you can have more files open in one application
window. SDI examples are... Notepad or Internet Explorer 6 - one window for
one "document".

What is strange with ImageComposer is, that it supports multiple windows
but only one document - try to start it with new composition, and from
Window menu, choose New Window. The titlebar changes to Untitled:2. Now, try
Window menu and choose Cascade, or Tile. You will see both windows.

This can be for example used to have one window set to big zoom and the
other one to 100%, so you can see how your changes in details look like in a
global view.

I know this is quite bad explanation but hopefully you got it. More details
on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multip...ument_interface ;-)

Jan

"walter666" <invalid@nowhere.not> wrote in message
news:eNJEWEsAHHA.2316@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> What is MDI?
>
>

mamselle

2006-11-19, 6:30 pm

no :)
i had to try and figure this out just now ;)
i like the idea of having the 2 windows - 1 on a larger zoom, that's fun - i will try that on my next calendar i make
what else could it be used for?

i do sometimes have many i/c open and running - working on different things
1 that i had worked on and saved as a mic
and one where i take things out of the old one and play with again in a new i/c

thanks for the neat insight & lesson!
m

"Jan Kucera" <uam@centrum.cz> wrote in message news:4929A30D-2E84-4AFE-AEC7-E37AE6838556@microsoft.com...
Hi again,
My todays question is - have you ever used the MDI possibilities of Image
Composer? If, then how?

For those you don't know, Image Composer is a MDI application - however you
can have only one document opened at the time. (More windows of that one.) I
don't find this bad, I'm just a little curious if you have tried it. ;-)

Jan

Jan Kucera

2006-11-19, 6:30 pm

Hi mamselle,
this is what I was trying to get - for what you can use it ;-)

However I have one more idea - if you open two or more windows with large
(uh, or big? :)) zoom - btw. it makes sense to zoom different parts of your
composition ;-) - you can drag sprites from one window to another (both
frame or with contents mode) - which looks pretty cool.. :-)

Jan

"mamselle" <mamselle_nospam@mamselle.ca> wrote in message
news:uSRGdQvAHHA.5068@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> no :)
> i had to try and figure this out just now ;)
> i like the idea of having the 2 windows - 1 on a larger zoom, that's fun -
> i will try that on my next calendar i make
> what else could it be used for?
>
> i do sometimes have many i/c open and running - working on different
> things
> 1 that i had worked on and saved as a mic
> and one where i take things out of the old one and play with again in a
> new i/c
>
> thanks for the neat insight & lesson!
> m
>

walter666

2006-11-19, 6:30 pm

Hi Jan,

Thanks for the detailed and clear explanation of MDI. It was very helpful.