Window Setup help

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pwdiener
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 3:45 pm

Window Setup help

Post by pwdiener »

In the Document List window, it would be useful to be able to select multiple files/buffers, then have a context menu option to manipulate the windows for those files. Specifically, cascade, tile, tile vertically, and tile horizontally would be very useful. Minimize and restore might also be helpful. If you weren't currently in MDI mode, this would put you there.

I find that I don't use multiple windows very often because they are such a pain to set up. I usually have many files open, so tiling or cascasding them all doesn't work very well for me and by the time I've minimized them all and restored the 2 or 3 I'd like to tile, I just don't bother unless I really need to.

Might there be a way to write a macro to do something like this? I can't think of a convenient way to specify which windows to operate on, otherwise it looks like the basic operations are there.

Bill Diener
jussij
Site Admin
Posts: 2650
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Post by jussij »

Hi Bill,
In the Document List window, it would be useful to be able to select multiple files/buffers, then have a context menu option to manipulate the windows for those files.

Unfortunately this is not really possible :(

Zeus is a stock standard Windows MDI application which means all the windows management is pretty much handled by Windows itself.

All the Window Tile, Cascade, Arrange Icons etc functionality is provided by the built in Windows MDI class and it is pretty much an all or nothing type of thing.

For example, standard Windows MDI does not provide a way to only tile, cascade, arange a selected number of windows. It is pretty much an all or nothing type of thing :(

Cheers Jussi
pwdiener
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 3:45 pm

Post by pwdiener »

What I do when I want to use MDI windows is to minimize all, then restore the ones I want (which cascades them), then tile them either vertically or horizontally. It seems like this should be do-able programmatically. I'm guessing that adding a window to the mix or opening another file might be a bit more work, however, but it seems like the same approach might do it.

What I might try is to loop through the open files and generate a list, then use keyboard_input to move through the list, select files, then restore the selected ones and tile them. I think that would accomplish what I'm looking to do.
jussij
Site Admin
Posts: 2650
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Post by jussij »

Hi Bill,

From within the Zeus Document List dialog, it might be possible to add minimise, restore and maximize menu items to the popup menu.

So in other words when using this dialog you could select a group of windows and perform any one of these three actions on the selected windows.

Is that the sort of functionality you are looking for :?:

Cheers Jussi
pwdiener
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 3:45 pm

Post by pwdiener »

That's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for.

What would maximize do? As I recall, when I maximize one window they all get maximized.

Anyway, being able to do that would let me accomplish exactly what I want by minimizing all, calling up the FileListDisplay, selecting the windows I want, restoring them, then tiling.
jussij
Site Admin
Posts: 2650
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:10 pm

Post by jussij »

The following Zeus 3.97 adds this feature: http://www.zeusedit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4766

To install this patch, backup your current Zeus installation and replace your current files with those contained in the zip.

Cheers Jussi
Last edited by jussij on Sat Jul 04, 2009 7:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
pwdiener
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 3:45 pm

Post by pwdiener »

Awesome! I've tried it briefly and it appears to work fine - I'll give it more of a workout tomorrow. Thanks!

Bill
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