RE: Zooming dock

[David Grega <webmaster overtech zzn com>]

I admit, the Gnome taskbar needs to be made user-friendlier.  I have still 
to figure out how to make the taskbar only display small (16x16) icons. 
 I'm sure the answer is fairly obvious.  However, remember, many people are 
coming from windows and expect windows stuff to work in Gnome.

I would like to inquire about the reason why Gnome doesn't use the windows 
key as a default shortcut to open Gnome's version of a start menu.

I also agree with all you said below except for one thing.  We shouldn't 
make things like the control panel neither too hard nor too easy to access. 
 I know in schools, it was easy for teachers to see when a student was 
accessing the
"evil" apple menu and give them a long assignment for doing so. 
 Afterwards, students knew never to touch the apple menu.  If you do that, 
it makes everyone's life much more easier.  If built well, programmers may 
be inclined to allow users to access the options window to their programs 
through the apple menu-clone in Gnome.

Also, novices are curious.  It'd be best to not allow them to accidentally 
screw with big things like virtual memory when they're just looking around 
to see what the programs on their system do (who reads a manual nowadays 
anyway?).

- David Grega
----------
From:  delmar watkins
Sent:  Monday, December 11, 2000 5:42 PM
Cc:  gnome-gui-list gnome org
Subject:  Re: Zooming dock

<<File: smime.p7s>>I think that Apple is actually playing it smart, *IF* 
they are trying to
integrate everyting into the dock, but keep the apple menu functionality.

Nothing is saying that there could not be 'drawers' on the dock that
essentially hold all of your application shortcuts, just like the apple
menu/gnome menu/start menu.  heck, for apple it could even have the little
Apple icon, or in gnome it could have the footprint.

Then, have another dock icon that is where all fo the control panel stuff 
is
placed...   you still have all of the goodness of the hierarchical menu
system, but integrated into ONE interface.  Instead of interacting with
different interface elements differently based on which type it is, the 
dock
could be ONE way to interact with the computer, given that there are 
several
ways (based on expertise or preference) that you behave to that one 
element.

In this way, you do not limit the choices of interaction, but increase the
ability to become an expert because instead of learning 5 different ways of
interacting with applications and file systems, ONE way of using the
apps/filesystem works the same way.

To me, if the dock were to be implemented in gnome, it should have:
1) keep the gnome menu, with its standard menus, etc. (no reason to get rid 
of
this)
2) drawers so that you can group TYPES of shortcuts instead of having them
make the dock too big.  And oh yeah, WindowMaker -style icons.
3) a trash can that WORKS
4) the ability to have resizable gnome applets
5) The ability to tack on folders of the file system, and be able to a) 
view
files in and b) drag and drop files into the folders, like the mac tabbed
folder/window view
6) open applications WITH the list of their associated windows.... so that 
if
I click (right click?  double click?) on a running application, I see all 
of
the windows it has, and can select them/ go to them.
7) a way to have indiviual control panels (like the sound control, etc) on 
the
dock.

To me, the above is what the dock should go towards:  an integrated method 
for
controlling the desktop.

David Grega wrote:

> I admit, the finder menu was fairly useful (before MacOS X) and something
> similar to it should be implemented into Gnome - or at least improve the
> taskbar to replace the finder menu.
>
> As for the apple menu, it was a great idea - I don't know why the heck 
they
> remmed it in MacOS X.  Novices knew if they touched that menu, they were
> doing some configuration stuff and that's bad for them to do since they'd
> probably screw it up.  I liked the very clear distinction between 
programs
> and configuration - something that should be implemented into Gnome.
>
> - Azkard
>
> ----------
> From:  delmar watkins
> Sent:  Monday, December 11, 2000 12:08 PM
> Cc:  gnome-gui-list gnome org
> Subject:  Re: Zooming dock
>
> <<File: smime.p7s>>The zooming dock is really cool because it allows 
Fitt's
> law to be used,
> while also keeping the dock relatively small.
>
> The 'Desk Guide' thing is really not that great of an example of the 
dock:
> the dock is more like the WindowMaker dock or the Enlightenment Iconbox.
>
> The cool thing about the Enlightenment Iconbox is that it can take a
> snapshot
> of your window as an icon, but the problem is if you have 3 terminals 
open,
> it is hard to distinguish between them, which actually LESSENS their
> impact.
> WindowMaker has the good idea of putting a little title bar on each
> iconized
> window, which (when coupled with the naming of gnome terms that was
> discussed
> a week or so ago) would make the Enlightenment iconbox SOOOO easy to use.
>
> Also, maybe having a little standard icon/watermark for the app in one of
> the
> corners would help (a little netscape 'stamp' or 'watermark' in one 
corner
> of
> every netscape icon??)
>
> Personally, I think that a gnome iconbox, a la the Enlightenment iconbox
> but
> better, would greatly help the GUI.  espectially if you added features 
that
> the gnome toolbar/MacOS Dock have, like allowing groups of
> aliases/shortcuts
> (like 'drawers' of shortcvuts), shortcuts to folders that you could drag
> and
> drop into, gnome applets, etc. etc. etc.  There are a lot of things that
> can
> be done with the dock that I think apple is going to do...
>
> (OFF TOPIC, KINDA)  I realized this weekend that the dock is actually a
> pretty slick implementation of a lot of the mac ideas.  It basically
> synthesizes the finder menu in the mac's upper right, the apple menu of 
the
> upper left, the desktop icons, and the tabbed finder menus (if you 
haven't
> seen these, then don't ever use a mac, 'cause as soon as you see them, 
you
> will not want to use linux again....).  The dock is a way to keep all of
> this
> stuff in ONE cool interface, and follow a lot of the user interface
> suggestions that people have had:  make it all consistent, follow fitts'
> law,
> etc.
>
> The thing is, I think it would be pretty easy for gnome to follow suit.
>  The
> new GUI for MacOSX is actually pretty darn sweet, and even if we had the
> FUNCTIONALITY without the 'genie effect' wiz-bang, we would still be 
ahead
> of
> the game.
>
> William Kendrick wrote:
>
> > Mark said:
> > >   I was wondering what peoples opinion of a zooming dock is. I 
haven't
> > > used MacOS X, but I would imagine it work similarly to what the video
> > > shows on their site. Icons would represent thumbnails of the
> application
> > > specific content,
> >
> > Well, we already have something like this.
> >
> > As of approx. version 0.4 of Gnome's "Desk Guide" applet shows 
thumbnails
> > of windows, a la the pager in Enlightenment.  (The one thing it doesn't
> do
> > (yet) is zoom-in when you hover the mouse over a thumbnail :) )
> >
> > Also, Eazel's "Nautilus" GUI shell shows thumbnails of document content
> > when you're navigating around your filesystem.  (ie, thumbnails of
> images,
> > the first few lines of text from text files, etc.  One suggestion I had
> > when I saw Nautilus presented at SVLUG was to have oscilloscope views
> > of sound files, so you could start recognizing them by the shape of the
> > sound... or, at the least, tell which MP3 is louder than another,
> > for example. ;) )
> >
> > -bill!
> >
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