Viewports and gnome 2

[Ken Witherow <phantoml rochester rr com>]

please CC replies since I'm not subscribed.

I'm not a gnome developer but I have been a gnome user for a few years.
I'd like to throw my two cents into the debate regarding the removal of
viewports in gnome 2.

There has been talk about how users of windows, KDE, etc don't seem to
miss viewports but is that because there isn't any use for viewports or
because they haven't become exposed to them and learned of their power?
To me, this is like saying that most people don't have any use for virtual
consoles because MS and others didn't have multiple consoles so linux
should drop the ability to have multiple consoles.

Prior to moving to linux full time, I had come from a DOS and OS/2
background plus dual booted into windows for a while. Like many other
people, I had used fvwm while at home in linux and then started getting
curious about some of the other choices out there. I tried KDE and found
it just too windowsy for my tastes and it seemed like too much was hidden
from the user.

Next I tried gnome + enlightenment and immediately felt like I was at
home. A first, I disabled the multiple viewports and worked in a single
workspace, single viewport desktop just like windows users would. One day,
I got sick of having to raise 15 windows to get to the window I wanted to
work and decided to give specific windows a specific viewport of their
own. I have a huge (180x82 text) Eterm in one view running pine with
various monitors and other mail related programs running. I've got my
browser dedicated to another viewport. terms open to various machine I
administer are open in another viewport, etc. Everything is all nicely
laid out and I never have to dig through windows to find what I currently
need to work on, just click the viewport I want to go to in the pager or
navigate to the next window via edge flipping in a nice 2D plane.

The proponents of removing viewports in gnome 2 and going solely to
workspaces are overlooking a few things that I find very important. First,
I think of workspaces as a one dimensional, linked list of desktops. They
can go to the previous or next workspace but there isn't a 2 dimensional
link between them. If I slide a window off to the right, it's very
intuitive that it would move to the viewport to the right. If I slide it
off to the bottom, it's intuitive that I'll find it in the bottom
viewport. Workspaces one dimensional relationship means I'm back to having
to dig through a one dimensional list to find what I want to work on
rather than having to click a single, logically laid out viewport.

Further, while each viewport in my setup had a dedicated use, several
programs that I use I constantly move across viewports so I can use them
while doing a different task than what I normally do in another workspace.
That is, I might be chatting with someone in gaim while I'm reading my
email so the gaim window is open in my email viewport. Meanwhile, the
person I'm talking to asks me to help them find something they're looking
for on the web so I'll go to the page and slide my gaim window into the
mozilla viewport where I can still talk and work at the new task at the
same time. I might then want to copy and paste part of a script for them
from my terminals viewport so I slide the gaim window to where I need to
be. Sometimes, I'll deliberately straddle a window between two viewports
so I can see if it's updates while I'm doing some work in/jumping back and
forth between those two viewports. I completely lose this functionality in
a workspaces only environment.

Several people said that if a window is so large, it needs multiple
viewports to be used, the app that produces it is broken and should be
made to include scroll bars/font scaling/etc. This completely ignores that
I might want to deliberately straddle a window like I mentioned before or,
as another person mentioned, want a terminal that is several viewports
wide so I can view large lines of data without wrapping. It's only
possible to scale down fonts so far before they become to small to read
and a text box with a scroll bar might not be able to view columns of data
with large gaps between them in a way that multiple viewports might let
you (assume that there is a text box in the center of a window with
widgets on either side of the box which forces the text box to be smaller
than the current desktop size vs the same window stretched across multiple
viewports so the text box is big enough for what you need while the
scroll bar couldn't allow as much simultaneous data). This still doesn't
consider all of the extra bloat and work required to make EVERY app out
there support text boxes with scroll bars in case someone decides to use
it in a way that most others might not. This is like saying every console
app should have to know how to manipulate the screen/display on all
architectures rather than having a library they all have in common that
can do the work in one place rather than to constantly have to duplicate
functionality. Isn't one of the big selling points of gnome 2 it's
shared component architecture? At the same time, some are suggesting that
some code shouldn't be shared.

Apparently, the powers that be decided that it was too "confusing" to have
both viewports and workspaces so one had to be removed. While I've
displayed that I'm a very strong viewport user, I don't have any use for
multiple workspaces. If I were to simply remove the functionality of
workspaces (since I like viewports) and tell everyone to get used to it
or shut up, it would smack of the same arrogance in Redmond many of us
hate. One of the wonderful things about *nix is that it's possible to do
the same job many different ways. While some might like awk/sed/grep,
someone else prefers perl. For one group to say the other is irrelevant
and should cease to function as they do simply to make some new user feel
more comfortable is simply wrong, especially if the remaining faction
can't do everything the eliminated faction was capable of. I'm all in
favor of keeping the desktop system as it was in gnome 1.x but if it
really is "too confusing", I don't understand why it shouldn't remain a
configurable option at a minimum. Is it really gnome's goal to try to
alienate older users in order to try to attract new users? Do not most
projects/political parties/companies/etc which decide to persue new
waters and forget their core base end up ringing their death knell? Is
the grass really greener on the other side?

To wrap up, the functionality of viewports is beyond critical for me -
it's a showstopper. None of the other toys in gnome 2 can persuade me to
adopt it in favor of gnome 1.x if I can't continue to be as productive as
I was before (viewports mean that much to my productivity). As long as
gnome 2 lacks the feature(s) of gnome 1 that I need, I will remain with
gnome 1 (or possibly switch to a fork of it or another manager which
supports my needs should gnome 1 EOL and no longer function in the
future). While it's nice to try to make things as usuable as possible,
everyone's definition of usable is different. gnome was attractive to me
because it was easily configurable in any myriad of ways so it could be
made into the best desktop for anyone who wanted to use it - not simply
how some "usability expert" thought I should use it. To those whom
contributed to gnome 1, I deeply thank you and want you to know your
legacy will live on... to those whom are dictating what's best for me with
gnome 2, I hope you find your greener pasture.


-- 
 Ken Witherow <phantoml AT rochester.rr.com> ICQ: 21840670
  http://krw.2y.net  <- so good, it's censored in China
    Linux 2.4.18 - because I'd like to get there today
to remain free, we must remain free of intrusive government