Re: Re: Where is "Explore from here"?

On 6 Feb 2004, at 22:23, Jesse Glick wrote:

> Jan Rojcek wrote:
>> There is also a proposed solution to open a new window as another tab
>> next to the Filesystem window, but this won't work with the new 
>> windowing system, as all windows open around the document area must
>> have an item in Window menu. The set of windows open around document
>> area is predefined by product/modules and the user can't change it.
>
> Maybe I'm missing something basic here, but I hope you mean "we do not 
> consider this good UI in conjunction with the new windowing system"

Yes, this is what I mean.

> rather than "this is technically impossible in the new windowing 
> system". The latter I don't really believe because I *have* code which 
> seems to work just fine which makes a new TopComponent and does
>
> WindowManager.getDefault().findMode("explorer").dockInto(tc);
> tc.open();
> tc.requestActive();
>
> which as you would expect, opens my special component as a new tab 
> next to the Filesystems window.
>
> So, why can't we do this for Explore From Here ()? What's the big deal?

The big deal is that it would break the new windowing system concept: 
Fixed set of non-document windows accessible from Window menu. This 
concept is fairly important part of new windowing system. Without this 
concept all the windows could potentially create its (sort of) copies 
(Explore from Here, hypothetical Clone Component Inspector to see the 
structure of favorite form file, Clone Properties to see the properties 
of favorite object, ...). I can imagine a use case for each 
non-document window to be used as a copy. But allowing this would 
definitely complicate the winsys model, which is opposite to what we 
intended with winsys redesign.

-Jano