Just in case you use IE...

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Author: Victor Odhner
Date:  
Subject: Just in case you use IE...
Jeff wrote:
> What's this MDI error thing in Eudora? I've used it for
> 2 years, and prefer it to anything else on windows, but
> have not seen an MDI error.


Not MDI *ERROR*, I'm complaining about the MDI *FRAME*.
The fact that all the "windows" you open are stuck inside
the same rectangle, that's called MDI. You can't float
a page or message outside of that frame.

Both Opera and Eudora do this, and I hate it.

This is a "religious discussion", and there is no right
answer. Robert Jorgenson cites it as a big advantage:
> 1. you can have as many browser windows open as you
> want and it is all kept in one window so you dont
> clutter up your task bar


The task bar is a device for sorting out the different
things you are doing. Each e-mail message or web page
that I have open is "something I am doing", so why not
a separate entry on the task bar?

If they're all stuck inside one window, you can't give
separate treatment to multiple pages or messages. You
can't shuffle them around in juxtaposition with one
another, and so on. I'm talking about the old desktop
metaphor -- imagine if all your paper memos were stapled
together so you could not arrange them on your desk.
What if your dictionary, atlas and phone book were all
bound into one volume? That's your one-window browser.

Microsoft Word, through Word 97, used to use MDI.
They broke loose with Word 2000, so now each document
stands alone.

Eudora just seems klunky to me. Reject.

I'm happy with Netscape 4.7 for e-mail. Only gripe is
that it won't honor my default browser setting when I click
on links in e-mail messages.

I use Opera sometimes just because it's not IE5 or Netscape,
and I use it for its right-click "Validate" feature when I
am editing web pages. On Linux, Opera works better for me
than Netscape 4.7 -- I can' use Netscape 6.1, it bogs my
machine down hopelessly. I agree that Opera is very fast.

Other complaints about Opera: I still don't know how to pull
up a history of my last day or two of browsing, and does it
have anything corresponding to IE5's "links" bar where you
can keep frequently-used links handy?

Vic