On Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 10:07:22AM -0500, Richard Querin wrote:
Also, the behaviour/frustration of working with floating dialogs depends on what platform you're on.
I second that. I often hear Windows users complain about programs that use multiple windows for toolboxes and such, and I see where they're coming from. At work, when I have to use Windows, it's inconvenient mostly when I have Inkscape (or GIMP) as well as another window (usually, the document I'm drawing illustrations for): if I click on the other document's window on the taskbar to edit that, and then click on the Inkscape one to bring that to the front, the toolboxes end up left behind the other document. When I do this in Linux, I can make arbitrary windows be on top or group them, and then I don't have a problem; in fact, it is advantageous, because I have more control over where to put them and when to display them. My only problem is that I keep trying to press escape to get rid of them (particularly the Find dialog), which does nothing.
If your workflow is impeded by missing features in your window manager, you should complain to the supplier of the window manager. I think it's a shame that the hard-working and dedicated Inkscape authors have had to spend time working around misfeatures in third-party software; that said, I look forward to 0.46, and hope that dockable dialogs bring with them other benefits.