esoteric request -- window names and Cordless Dog Stay

[vj1726a]

An esoteric feature request regarding multiple windows opening on the same document in Writer:

I use Cordless Dog's Stay application to remember window locations and sizes and restore them when using a MacAir with varied combinations of external monitors (one office MacAir alone, another location 1 external monitor running off the Thunderbolt, a third location 2 external monitors, 1 running off Thunderbolt and one running of a USB video adapter; NeoOffice left running and documents open, Mac put to sleep when moving between locations).

Stay has trouble remembering the locations of NeoOffice Writer if I have multiple windows open on the *same* document but ONLY once I save changes (I'm editing a large file needing to insert changes in 5 different locations in the same document). Everything works well *unless* I manually save a version of the file, then Stay stacks all the windows on top of one another. According to the developer who has tested this, it is due to the fact that NeoOffice does not preserve the unique titles of the windows after a save when there are multiple windows open onto the same document (even though I am just putting the mac to sleep and not quitting NeoOffice, nor exiting the document, in between sessions). So, feature request is to preserve window titles when Saving and multiple instances / windows on the same file are open. Below please find the description from the developer of Stay, in case this is something you are interested in! Thanks.

> I've finally had a chance to do some testing with NeoOffice and unfortunately I'm not sure that there's much that can be done to get it working reliably with Stay. The problem seems to be a result of two problems which combine to create a situation where Stay can't tell any of NeoOffice's windows apart.
>
> From Stay's point of view, NeoOffice's windows all look basically identically except for their titles. The difference in window titles *is* actually enough for Stay to be able to tell which window is which, the problem is that as soon as you edit or save a document, NeoOffice causes all windows belonging to the document to be given the same window title: the name of the document.
>
> Once this happens Stay loses the ability to tell the windows apart so restoring windows tends to cause windows to be stacked on top of each other or to not be restored at all.
>
> I wish I had better news to give, but I've looked into whether there's any way for me to work around the problem and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do from Stay's end.

[pluby]

While I understand your desire to optimize the interaction between NeoOffice and one of your system hacks, I am opposed to such a change.

The reason that I am opposed to such a change is that the window titles have been set from the document name in NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code for literally decades and most users expect the existing behavior not only in NeoOffice, but also in Microsoft Office. Essentially, you are requesting that we implement non-standard window title naming to workaround the limitations of a third party system hack. The confusion and increased support load that changing window titles will likely bring is just too risky for us to consider implementing.

Even though I am opposed to this change, we will consider implementing this new feature request if an overwhelming number of other donors post that they also want this new feature. If there are enough users, we will look at this new feature request again.

Patrick