Re: Some questions raised by 131010

[Neil Stevens <neil hakubi us>]

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On Tuesday 23 November 2004 01:25 pm, Shaun McCance wrote:
> Every time I post stuff like this, people pick and choose what they
> reply to.  That's fair, since I pick and choose what I reply to as
> well.  But it strikes me as odd that nobody ever replies to my main
> objections to the everything-maximized design.  How do you work with
> multiple documents (images, folders, whatever) at the same time?
>
> There are problems with CSDI interfaces on today's X desktops.  These
> designs that work really well on the Mac aren't working as well for us.
> But rather than applying SDI with a bulldozer (the Windows approach), we
> should find out why CSDI isn't working as well on our desktops.

The problem with CSDI is that the popular window managers can't handle it 
very well.  Operations like hiding and moving an application to another 
desktop become inconvenient.

That's one reason that MDI (both mother window-style and tabbed) happens: 
apps supply their own window management to cover for what are perceived to 
be inadequate desktop WMs.

CSDI worked well on a Mac because its window manager was designed for and 
essentially forced, that behavior for all apps.  The menu bar acted as the 
control window for each application.

So, if you want to rehabilitate CSDI in the eyes of users, improve the 
window manager.  WM-based grouping in the style of fluxbox 
( http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/ ) would be a place to start.

- -- 
Neil Stevens - neil hakubi us
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who
are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
                                                 -- Albert Einstein(?)
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