Re: MDI vs SDI. Which is Better?

On Sat, 12 Jul 2025 11:38:30 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:

 
I don't have a preference, only that I think SDI works most of the time,
and MDI is better in some situations where the documents are tightly
coupled.
>

I suppose that MDI is the standard on Micro$lop because it never had
(until very recently) virtual desktops.

But let's compare PhotoShop and GIMP.

Photoshop is MDI and the image being edited is necessarily shrunk to
allow for the surrounding toolbars and menus.  Needless to say, editing
an image requires maximum resolution to be able to easily discern the
details but PhotoShop does not allow this.  Junk!

The GIMP, however, is SDI and I can expand the image to be as large
as I desire because all the toolbars and menus are within completely
independent windows.  All the windows can overlap or they can be in
different VDs.

Also, consider opening two, or even three or more, separate images
to effect cutting and pasting between them.  With the independent
windows of GIMP this is absolutely no problem.

I can't imagine how that would be done with MDI PhotoShop.  I suppose
one would have to awkwardly cut/copy from the first image and then
close the first and open the second in order to copy.  Extremely
inefficient!

SDI should be the only way.  In GNU/Linux is usually is but I don't
know about the GNOME/KDE junk software.



--
Systemd: solving all the problems that you never knew you had.