Re: Thinking about the tasklist

[Chipzz <chipzz ULYSSIS Org>]

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Benjamin Kahn wrote:

>       * For a while now I've been frustrated by the GNOME tasklist.  For
>         most of the things I need it to do, it does fine.  But it has a
>         couple of behaviors that really annoy me.  So I've been trying
>         to come up with a list of these problems and their solutions.
>
>
> I'm not trying to replace the tasklist with anything -- although I'm
> sure people can come up with better UIs in general for the tasklist.
> I'm simply trying to find behavior and appearance tweaks that can make
> the tasklist more consistent and usable.
>
>
>       * The tasks are sized according to the amount of text in window
>         titles. Because applications which change their window titles
>         frequently are very common, (Terminal, Mozilla, Red Carpet,
>         etc.) this means that task sizes will often be changing sizes.
>         Obviously if there is a lack of space for all the tasks, the
>         tasks should be shrunk so they all fit. But they should not grow
>         and shrink according to window titles. Additionally, if the
>         tasklist is rotated into a vertical panel, the tasklist height
>         is wrong since the text isn?t rotated. Bug 155870 Bug Patch
>       * The amount of padding around the icons and text in the tasklist
>         is too small. Bug 155865 Patch
>       * The default icon showing a blank page is ugly and is the wrong
>         size ? thus it always looks blurred. Bug 155867 ([embedded
>         Image])
>       * When a window title is too long to fit in the space provided, it
>         should be shortened and ellipsizes should be shown. (?) Bug
>         155868 Patch
>       * Windows on the task list should be shown in the order that the
>         windows appeared, not reorganized at will. Bug 155874
>       * When windows are grouped together, the right click menu should
>         act on all the grouped windows. Right clicking on the group menu
>         itself should allow you to act on a single window. Bug 155875
>       * Putting brackets [] around minimized windows looks ugly and may
>         not be needed. Other ideas: Italics? Only dim the icon? Shrink
>         the text size? Bug 155876
>       * When windows are grouped, and one of the grouped windows is the
>         active window, the icon and the title of the grouped window
>         should be from the active window. Bug 155878
>       * It would be nice to improve the title of window groups. One way
>         might be to get the WM_COMMAND from the window properties and
>         look that command up in .desktop files. This won?t work if
>         no .desktop file exists for the application, and might not work
>         well on remote applications. Still, this should improve the
>         display quite a bit. Bug 155878
>
>
> Anyway, I have patches for four of the problems already.  Comments?
> Agreements?  Disagreements?

Maybe I'm requesting a feature that's too "advanced", but an option to
never group certain apps (gnome-terminal comes to mind).

kr,

Chipzz AKA
Jan Van Buggenhout
-- 

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                 UNIX isn't dead - It just smells funny
                           Chipzz ULYSSIS Org
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"Baldric, you wouldn't recognize a subtle plan if it painted itself pur-
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