Open multiple pages of the same notebook in separate windows

Main interface design is now around a single page. Need to think how the interface would look for multiple windows showing different pages. Would secondary windows be more minimalist only showing a single page (possibly locked read only) or should all windows be equal and keep separate histories etc. ?

If we stick to a single main window with lean secondary windows, the secondary windows should behave as static views to a single page. Clicking a link in such a window does not change the page in that window, but instead makes the main window open the link.

This would make sense as a way have static views at index pages, e.g. a page with bookmarks. Also this is similar to the behavior of e.g. clicking a link in the search dialog or the linkmap dialog. ((Yes the python remake has a graph dialog showing page relations...))

Instead of separate windows, I could image this being a tabbed interface for Zim. That would be great: having multiple notes open in separate tabs, and clicking Ctrl-Tab to cycle between them like Firefox does. I currently do this with the History but it is a bit of a kludge.

That's a good idea... I would very much like an option to pop-out a tab into a new window (read-only window if necessary). The idea is to be able to see data in a non-linear order from several previous notes... I think this is really useful feature to have...

In the python branch there is now an "open in new window" showing a read-only window (rev 164).

Are you still planning to make the "secondary" window writeable? The current "open in new window" feature is already a substantial improvement, but it is still a bit limited (sorry, I am just so used to applications that offer multiple fully functional windows of the same document).

Yes, this is on my list. But there are some other features I want to
work on first. So it will take some time.

See also bug #607696

From related bug report (flagged duplicate):

== pages in new window not updated ==

Steps to reproduce:

- open a page
- select "Open in New Window" from the index context menu for this specific page
- both the new window and the primary window now show the same page
- edit the page in the primary window
- the page in the new window is not updated

(Zim 0.47, 64 bit Ubuntu 9.04)

Since Zim is using gtk TextView, which already comes with a Model-View-design, it might be a good idea to let all views of a single page share the same model.

An alternative would be to not allow the same page to be opened twice, but unless you are willing to drop the primary/secondary-window distinction (which would be a Very Good Thing IMHO), this would have a negative effect on usability (navigating through the main window could randomly close secondary windows).

I noticed, that I can open the same notebook twice in --standalone mode, which might become useful for summarizing (where the current read-only implementation of the "New Window" isn't sufficient, as changes to both source and summary may be needed).

It first happened when I followed an interwiki-link, and subsequently I also tested it with Ctrl-O. As expected though it causes inconsistencies:

The index view breaks when pages are moved in one instance, e.g. take the notebook structure

CopyEquations (2)
    Source (1)
        Test
    Target
Home

This notebook was opened twice in zim Windows A and B. In Window A I moved :CopyEquations:Target to :Home:Target.

CopyEquations (1)
    Source(1)
        Test
Home
    Target

In Window B however it looked like:

CopyEquations (1)
    Source(1)
        Test

i.e. the number of subpages was updated, but not the overall tree. Gtk also complained in the log file (Attachment), I guess about the inconsistent data. When I moved back "Target" to the old position in Window A, Window B also showed the correct index again.

When trying to open a notebook a second time with Ctrl-O _without_ --standalone, zim simply crashed.

Yes, you should not open the same notebook twice. This is exactly why
"--standalone" is not the default.

An additional enhancement to multiple windows would be having split windows, with an option to split horizontally and vertically. Even better, recursive splitting, ala terminator.