Creating Window "Groups"?

[zenlando]

With the understanding the MT architecture doesn’t lend itself to workspace tabs, I had an idea borrowed from some CAD experience for something that might achieve similar results. Would it be possible to have the ability to select a group of windows that have been snapped together (like several small charts in the same sector, for example) and put them into a grouping that could be simply and quickly locked or unlocked as a unit? Once the group is created (and given a name) it could be moved around as a single unit, but more importantly, the entire group could be minimized to the bottom of the screen as one would an individual chart window. When the group is maximized for viewing, each individual chart’s functions would ideally still be available without having to unlock to access. Of course then when it’s unlocked all the chart windows would function individually again.

[Jerry Medved]

In theory, sure.

 

In practice, there are quite a few issues there that would need to be addressed, other than just the time to actually do it

 

1) How hard is it to make the windows move together like that? I have them snapping together when they get near each other, but don't know about the moving part

2) what would be the actual UI for locking/unlocking the windows?

3) Minimizing as a group would be somewhat problematic.  MT handles it's own window management because each window is in it's own thread and therefore they cannot be handled by Windows standard stuff. 
 

I would say that a more likely approach may be just to do container windows, where you can create a container window and drag MT windows inside it. and then move the container window.  

 

Right now though the top priority is to get core functionality working

[zenlando]

Thanks for the response. I’m not much of a techie, so really don’t have a feel for what might be involved, and need to clarify that I was thinking more down the road in some future version after all the more basic functionality had been addressed – I may have wrongly assumed that was what this Feature Request category was for (maybe a tad blue sky?).  Actually this idea came about after you had mentioned in another post that MT didn’t lend itself to container windows – so was just seeing what else might be possible if it was ever determined that something like this might be an interesting addition.

[Jerry Medved]

nono, its fine. I am just setting expectations - some are quickly implemented. Others .. more down the road.  As for the user interface, how did the CAD software do it?

[wyldegoos]

I like the idea of a container window. That would be a tremendous tool for my investment strategy. I hope this actually does get implemented some time down the road. 

[zenlando]

Hey Jerry. This was done a couple of different ways as I recall. I would either make a menu choice or choose a toolbar button to allow the “select” function, and then each line or other individual drawing component would be selected by a left mouse click. Once the ones I wanted were selected, then I would typically right click and choose the appropriate contextual menu item for creating the group. (Not unlike the typical Windows individual selection function).

 

More commonly I would want to select an entire smaller drawing, which would then become a component of a larger/more complex drawing. This was done by choosing a “selection polygon” which typically was a simple rectangle that I would draw around the entire drawing with two mouse clicks – one for first corner and the other for the opposite corner. Once the drawing was selected, I would again choose the contextual menu item or toolbar button to create the group, after which it could easily be moved into place within a larger drawing. And the process was the same if wanted to select and bind together several of these groups to make one larger group.  It was not uncommon to have many of these nested groups in a typical drawing. And the selection process essentially worked in reverse to unlock the groups or drawings into their original components. Hope this all makes some sense :-).

[Jerry Medved]

good to know. will keep it in mind

[HK~]

This could also be accomplished similar to Tradestation Work spaces/Desktops, which was recently adopted by Multicharts. Just a thought for down the road when time/desire permits.

 

Can mix intra-day, Historic, watch list, raw Data [Time & Sales] etc...

 

This also accommodates for multi-monitor setups, each screen having a different Desktop/Workspace

 

 

 

 

[Jerry Medved]

y, MDI windows are always an option, though we really aren't crazy about this type of interface. Plus, I am not sure if that would even work with our setup since each of MT's windows is in it's own thread, which might not work with standard MDI