user-selectable setting to "open in new window

[CarbonPepper]

Wishlist: A user-selectable setting to "open in new window" instead of tabs is desirable.
E.g. Purpose - Comparing two or more documents side by side, perhaps across multiple displays.

Better still would be an ability to drag tabs between windows as per chrome and firefox browser behaviour.

I used the hack on the .desktop to stop using tabs for now, but this is sub-optimal. Ideal would be to have both tabs and windows, as this UI behaviour is so familiar from browser use :)

[Adam Reichold (adamreichold)]

Hello abssorb,

I considered this some time ago and decided that the question of qpdfview is invoked does not belong into the program but into the desktop environment doing the invocation. You can use qpdfview as a unique application or with multiple (named) windows and I think the command-line options are much more flexible than an application setting. Hence modifying a desktop launcher (or using the desktop actions contained within the default laucnher) is not considered a hack, it is the recommended way to select the default behaviour.

Concering implementing window-manager-like like in various browser, e.g. dragging tabs between windows and one application instance managing several windows, I am currently not considering implementing this because of the additional complexity this would introduce and because of conceptional redudancy with the window manager you are surely already running, c.f. [1].

Best regards, Adam.

[1] http://blog.komar.be/my-way-of-handling-pdfs-in-xmonad/

[CarbonPepper (carbonpepper)]

The reality for us is that this user preference can only be utilised by those familiar with the command line, which excludes 90% of our users. That's fine, I'll find an alternative for our deployment. Thanks for the quick response. :)

[Adam Reichold (adamreichold)]

Hello again,

for users who are not familiar with the command line, we intended the desktop actions defined in the default launcher. Depending on your desktop environment you should be able to access the two default action "ChooseInstance" (chosing a named window using a dialog box) and "NonUniqueInstance" (open a completely independent window). Unity's launcher should for example offer those via the launcher icon's context menu.

As a fallback and especially if you have a defined deployment procedure, you can ship several desktop files that expose different actions like "open in new window".

Best regards, Adam.

[CarbonPepper (carbonpepper)]

Thanks again.

The mind set of basic users is; to control how "this app" works, I change it using the menu inside "this app". That's all they know, because every other app they used for the last 30 years also works that way.

I'm not trying to negotiate, just explaining why it's not going to work in our organisation.

It's a great app otherwise. And I'll use it for myself. :)