Hi David,

Since you're asking for opinions, I'll give you mine. Note that this really is just my opinion though, and not necessarily the best way to architect your application.

My first question would be: Do you absolutely need an ID on each window? You very well may be able to get away without using them. For instance, the "desktop" piece can simply keep an array with references to each window's controller (or simply use XPath to get a list of the window container's children). Anything inside a window, if it needs a reference to the window controller itself, should be able to do that by traversing up the tree using XPath.

Next, if you decide that you need to have IDs, I would use a sequential naming convention instead of a random one. In other words, keep a running total of how many windows have been opened and name each window "window1", "window2", "window3", etc. Using a random string always has the possibility of creating a duplicate, unless the generator is in a loop which checks for duplicates. But why do that when it's simple and performant to just keep a running total.

Next, regarding CSS, there are very, very few times when you should use an ID as a CSS selector: ie, "#window { width: 100%; }". Instead, you should use classes. Each window could have the appropriate class, say, "window" and the CSS would look like ".window { width: 100%; }". Now all your windows regardless of their ID will have the appropriate look and feel. Keep in mind that an element can have more than one class and that Backbase provides "addClass" and "removeClass" commands.

I realize I've given very broad generalizations here and there are still lots of details to work out, but from an overall design perspective, I believe these ideas will save you headaches in the future.

- James Brantly