That sounds like a pretty good idea. I didn't even think of a
JTabbedPane. I also have to thank you for the link to j3d.org, it's a
great resource that I didn't know existed.
Thanks again for all your help
Bruce
On Mar 31, 2005, at 1:21 PM, Curtis Rueden wrote:
Hi Bruce,
Actually, I think it is the other way around with SDI/MDI:
SDI means one (single) document per frame
MDI means multiple documents in one master frame
The original idea was that with SDI, you spawned a separate instance
of the application for each document, hence "single document
interface." So I suppose technically, both the multiple JFrame and
single JInternalFrame approaches are "multiple document" approaches,
although MDI usually means "all documents in one master frame."
Given the number of windows you need to work with, my suggestion is to
use tabs. I know JTabbedPane can be made to work with Java3D (others
on the VisAD list have mentioned it in the past). According to
J3D.org's article on Java3D and Swing --
http://www.j3d.org/tutorials/quick_fix/swing.html -- JTabbedPane will
work "as long as you only put J3D in the |JTabbedPane| and not any
Swing elements." But you can easily detect which tab is active and
toggle the states of various nearby Swing components to create the
same effect.
Good luck,
-Curtis
Bruce Flynn wrote:
Hey Curtis,
That's funny, I just got done having a discussion with co-workers
debating MDI vs. SDI.
Just for clarity, my understanding is as follows:
SDI: All windows inside a main application window. ie.
JDesktopPane with JInternalFrames
MDI: As you described, all separate window controlled by a main
window controller
The problem with MDI is that we have any number of instruments each
with a 6 window display. If you are displaying 3 instruments at once
you have 18 windows that look the same except for the title bar with
the instrument name. Also, the application is a monitoring
application and a MDI does not easily restrict the application to a
small piece of screen real-estate.
The other option being considered is a sudo-SDI where each of the 6
components for an instrument would be in a scrollable/slideable panel
in a single JFrame. One for each instrument. The problem with this
approach is when a user wants to maximize a graph the handling of the
scroll/slider panes would be a mess.
So we're juggling around MDI, SDI, or sudo-SDI, to accommodate the
large amounts of windows. Any suggestions or comments are more than
welcome.
I'm going to tryout the 2D display just to test the feasibility of
using the JInternalFrames and see if I can get that working.
Thanks
Bruce
