Re: suggestion for managing clutter on the desktop

[Tristan Buckmaster com]

> Hello,
> 
> Although I know that the tabbed applications 
> absolutely suck for consistency, I still would prefer
> them over separate windows. The reason is that having
> more windows still clutters my desktop, regardless of
> how my panels are layed out and what information they
> show
> me.

If you had the ability with one click to show one
window and hide the others or hide all windows of one
application, I do not believe it would really add
clutter to the desktop.  If anything it would probably
reduce clutter, as it replaces the need for tabbed
applications so non-tabbed applications can get the
same clutter reducing features that would have only
been available to them if they were tabbed.

> I much prefer to use Alt-Tab to switch to the   
> application I'm interested in and then Ctrl-Tab or 
> the mouse to switch to the correct tab.
> 
> What you described is exactly what Microsoft tried to
> push with Office 2000 and greater. Since that 
> release, they have broken their MDI model. Now, every
> Word document is in a separate window, every
> spreadsheet is in a separate window, etcetera. I find
> Office painful to work in with multiple documents.
> 
> While your solution would do wonders for something 
> like Office, it is my  opinion that tabs are 
> superior. A major complaint against the default Gnome 
> layout is "why are there two bars?". Adding a third 
> wouldn't help that, and people with lower-resolution
> displays would get cranky.

I don't believe you would need three seperate panels. 
If you look at the Gnome 2.6 user screenshots you will
see most people do not use much of one of their panels.
 The panel applet that displays just titles of the
application in focus would probably fit quite well into
   one of the panels.  The use of grouped icons as
opposed to the conventional tasklist would also free up
space on users' desktop.

Although it would make it harder for the user to use
just one panel, which is the preference of some users.

The main advantage seperate windows have over tabbed
applications is that you can have all the windows with
different sizes and positions.  I find with tabbed
applications, I pretty much always have them occupying
most of my screen, just because one particular tab may
require this.