Yeah, that would be sweet, if it were seamless. I can imagine a little frustrating when pulling the session into a new instance of SU instead of MDI, having long load time for plugs, environment, etc, and if there were any files lost while separating or joining
Oh! That makes me realize coding challenges. If extension observers were already monitoring the model in the source instance, they’d be garbage collected. This means that extensions would need to be informed that a model was being moved out of the instance. Likely the user would be prompted to save the model if it had edits before it could be opened in the new instance.
1 Like
Big yes for me. My SketchUp takes a lot of time to start because I have many plugins to load. If I could only start SU once and open multiples documents without having to load all the plugins every time, this would be a huge time saver.
1 Like
I voted NO, for a question of interface.
Right now, In SU for PC, you open an instance for every file you open. Sure, it means relaunching the extensions a second or third time, but it also means that your instance is airtight in regard of the others. if one crashes, the rest remains.
Also, for all the twin screen workers out here, it means having two fully functional SU on two screens. Sure, only one can be in focus at a time, but still, moving from one project to another (with full customizable interface) in a simple click.
On the other hand,
in SU for MAC, already supporting MDI, if you open two SU files, you open one instance and two modelling windows. If SU crashes, all the projects crash. and if you choose to use both screens for a pair of projects, you can move the modelling viewport sure, but you’ll still have all your toolbars and panels on one screen. Working on screen B while all of it is on screen A is awkward to say the least. And if you require different panels or toolbars in each file, well… you can’t.
Plus, if you start a heavy task, a cleanup, an erode tool, or a render, you’re immobilizing your SU instance, regardless of how many files are open. you better have youtube a book at hand to wait for the task to end.
So yeah, all things considered, I’d rather conserve the instance system. I would go further, when the mac version finally ends up being revamped someday, I wouldn’t mind if it adopted the instance system currently in use on the PC version.
And to nail the coffin (working on my idioms 
) It could be a good upgrade to ensure that each instance is dealt with by a different CPU core when possible. having 4 files run on a core each, or having 4 files on a single core is different.
1 Like
Hummm! You got a good point there. A very good one actually. (About all instances crashing at once) I think I’m changing my mind.
I agree - I would like to be able to simply “Drag a tab away, Drop a tab in” for this.
I’m more of an end user, so I’m not versed on Notepad++ code stuff, but I’m familiar with the way I can drag tabs in browser apps, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc. That’s what I would envision.
Layout has MDI, correct? But you can’t drag a document tab out to another screen. I guess you can create a new Vertical Tab Group and expand the whole Layout Window span 2 screens, but if one crashes/closes, the one one would too.