Re: Suggestion: CDE style minimizing to desktop

[James Henstridge <james jamesh id au>]

Jordan Mendler wrote:
> I had a suggestion, but I am not sure if this is a correct place to post
> it, so please let me know if it isn't. I think GNOME should integrate
> the ability to minimize windows to a desktop icon as is the case with
> CDE. I like GNOME a lot better than any other desktop environment,
> except when it comes to managing lots of servers I use CDE solely
> because of this feature. For those that haven't used CDE, by clicking a
> button on a windows title bar's (located in the top right next to
> maximize), CDE will minimize the window to a desktop icon. Then to
> restore the window you just double-click the respective window's icon
> from the desktop. This is very useful because it allows you to have tons
> of programs open and easily accessible without occupying monitor space
> like with the gnome-panel. In my case, I keep an ssh session open to
> every server we have. When I am not using a particular server I just
> minimize the terminal to an icon on the desktop and it is completely out
> of the way. When I need to access any given system I just go to the
> desktop and can very easily locate and open whichever server I need.
>
> Unfortunately I do not know how to program so I can't do this myself,
> but I thought it would be a really neat and useful feature to be
> considered in subsequent GNOME releases, or possible as an add-on. If
> GNOME added at 4th button to the top-right of each windows so you can
> either exit, maximize/restore windows size, minimize to panel, or
> minimize to desktop I think that would be pretty unique and bad ass. At
> work, I know of at least 2 other administrators that use CDE over GNOME
> for this reason alone. Of course this also means having to have a second
> workstation running GNOME for all my non-terminal needs since CDE is
> otherwise pretty lousy. If GNOME had this feature I could very easily
> have a panel open for email, web, documents, etc and then just keep all
> the ssh sessions minimized to the desktop of the same system.
>
> Please post any comments or thoughts on this matter. Or, if something
> like this already exists as an add-on or option somewhere please let me
> know. I would be imagine there are a lot of other people that have run
> into this same kind of problem with GNOME, KDE and the like.
>   
If you are worried about desktop real estate, you might want to try the
"window selector" panel applet.  This is appears as a simple menu.  This
works pretty well for a single small panel setup, and leaves room for
other applets.

James.