What does "singleton modeless" mean? - 【StackMirror】|singleton|modeless

I know what a singleton is, but while walking through a web-app, my co-worker said "singleton-modeless". What does he mean by this?

2009-06-16 20:02
by NoName

He may have terminal buzzworditis, tragic - cgp 2009-06-16 20:05

Why not ask him - Tom 2009-06-16 20:05

he left already - NoName 2009-06-16 20:10

There is this thing called a phone - call hime on one and ask - NoName 2009-06-16 20:13

Umm. this is a corporate environment its kind of rude to just call someone I dont really deal with. To top it off, he is one of the higher-up guys so I don't want to really ask him questions. besides it was just casual conversation not like we were planning specs or something - NoName 2009-06-16 20:28

Granted your moment has passed, but in the future you shouldn't hesitate to ask questions - Jon B 2009-06-16 20:32

@cupcake22 So rather than daring to ask the person who (presumably) knows the answer, you ask us, who demonstrably don't. I've worked for a number of the worlds big corporates (IBs,NGOs etc) and I can assure you, asking questions is normally both allowed and encouraged - NoName 2009-06-16 20:41

I work in a corporate environment and it's never been rude to call someone. Most people are happy to answer questions - ceejayoz 2009-06-17 03:01

Well a modeless form is the opposite of a modal form.

modeless form

Allows you to change the focus from form to form.

modal form

Disallows focus change until the modal form is closed.

That being said, singleton modeless must mean a single instance of a modeless form.

2009-06-16 20:06
by Andrew Hare

Downvoters: please leave a reason - Andrew Hare 2009-06-16 20:24

+1 for logical thinking. Some downvoters will do so on answers that are not definitive, btw - Robert S. 2009-06-16 20:48

Interesting. Thanks for this. :) I'm sure it'll help him - it helped me - Zack 2009-06-16 20:50

Surely every instance is a single instance: the "singleton" implies that only one instance can exist at a time (within some scope - the application, I'd guess). I've always hated modal dialogs and windows: almost all of the examples I've seen don't really need to be modal - cheduardo 2009-06-16 21:56

I found a reference to it in the MSDN Architecture Center here. They appear to mean a window that is not modal (in other words, the user is not forced to interact with it before interacting with its parent) and where only one instance of it exists.

I'm not sure if that's what you're co-worker meant but I wouldn't feel bad about not knowing what he meant. He may not have actually known himself.

2009-06-16 20:11
by Cameron

I think you forgot the link - chills42 2009-06-16 20:21

I did, thank you. Added - Cameron 2009-06-16 20:27

Actually this makes sense cause we were talking about how some JS in a web-app wasn't closing some of the DOM created components. I assumed it meant something like this but was looking for a more in depth explanation - NoName 2009-06-16 20:29

oops forgot to say thanks at the end of that sentence - NoName 2009-06-16 20:30

Singleton modeless or modal dialog is great because you don't have to worry that 2 instances will be shown to the user at the same time.

Ext.MessageBox is like this, called by a method, singleton modal. It could be used as the basis for a singleton modeless as well.

I agree, modal dialogs usually suck, unless very well thought through. And most modern apps are going modeless drawers, or ribbons, that are always available to the user while in context of the task at hand!

So examine your dialogs; you probably don't need half of them in your app right now...

2011-02-03 17:57
by Surfyogi