Re: want dash to be always-visible dock

[Adam Dingle <adam yorba org>]

On 04/03/2011 08:13 AM, Ryan Peters wrote:
> On 04/03/2011 09:12 AM, Adam Dingle wrote:
> > I've been using GNOME Shell recently on Fedora 15.  Aesthetically it 
> > looks nice, and I like the full-screen application launcher with 
> > integrated search.  But I definitely want a dock which is always 
> > visible on the side of my screen (a la Docky, Plank, Avant Window 
> > Navigator and so on) and to use it as my primary means of managing 
> > open applications.  So for the moment I'm running both GNOME Shell 
> > and Plank.  That works, but feels kludgy for a few reasons:
> >
> > 1. I see one dock (Plank) on my display at all times, but the GNOME 
> > Shell Activities view shows a second, independent dock (the dash).
> >
> > 2. Since I use Plank for window management, I don't often need the 
> > Expose view, so I really want the Activities button (and system key) 
> > to open the Applications view directly.
> >
> > 3. The window minimization effect zips toward the Activities button 
> > in the upper left, but I want it to zip downward toward the bottom of 
> > the display, where Plank is visible.
> >
> > I'd like to know whether the GNOME Shell developers would accept 
> > patches toward either of the following goals:
> >
> > 1. A preference, command-line option or GSettings key which tells 
> > GNOME Shell to display the dash at the edge of the screen at all 
> > times.  This would allow me and others with similar inclinations to 
> > use the GNOME Shell dash instead of Docky or other docks.  In this 
> > mode, Activities would directly open Applications since the dash is 
> > used for window management.  Ideally the user could choose which edge 
> > of the screen the dash should be displayed on.  The dash would 
> > auto-hide when other windows overlap it (just like Docky and other 
> > docks).
> >
> > and/or
> >
> > 2. A preference, command-line option or GSettings key which tells 
> > GNOME Shell to simply never display its dash, and that Activities 
> > should directly open Applications.  This would be convenient for 
> > users who want to use an external dock program.
> >
> > If the answer is no on both counts, then I'll need to look at 
> > alternatives to GNOME Shell in its entirety.  It would be nice, 
> > however, if we could find some way to make GNOME Shell play nicely 
> > with always-visible desktop docks.
> >
> > adam
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnome-shell-list mailing list
> > gnome-shell-list gnome org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
> The GNOME Shell Extensions repository on git.gnome.org has a dock 
> extension that integrates with the shell (though it displays on the 
> right, not the left like on the activities menu; that should be 
> changeable if you can read the source). Even still, I don't see how 
> hard it could be to press the Win/Super/Meta key to get to the 
> activities overlay quickly. I use that as a dock replacement and it's 
> just as fast and stays out of my way without the annoying auto-hide 
> feature some docks use to stay out of my way.
>
> Link: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell-extensions

OK - I didn't know about this dock extension and just tried it out.  
Even with this extension, all three of the user interface glitches that 
I listed as kludgy above still apply.  Still, this might be a starting 
point for further development.  I wasn't aware of gnome-shell-extensions 
at all before now, and it's nice to see there's a place to experiment 
with changes like these without necessarily having to take changes in 
GNOME Shell itself.

adam