RE: Zooming dock

["Gerry Chu" <gerrychu bigfoot com>]

Speaking of taskbars (maybe this could be applied to docks, too)...

I had an idea dealing with grouping programs in the taskbar:

1.	Let open programs be draggable within the taskbar (how many times do you
switch between 2 apps and they are on opposite sides of the taskbar?)

2.	Dividers.  There is a "divider source" on a side of the taskbar.  Users
group their programs by dragging the taskbar entries, then drag a divider
from the "divider source" between the groups of taskbar entries (like
checkout stand dividers).

3.	Right-clicking on a space (which contains taskbar entries) between the
dividers will show a menu that:

a. Allows the user to save the program group for group-execution later.  For
example, when writing papers, user finds he always does Internet research
with mozilla and writes the paper with Abiword.  Wouldn't it be more
intutive to have a "write report" launcher entry that automatically starts
mozilla and abiword?

b. Opens simplified sawfish "matched window" dialog that could allow user to
say if minimize one program in group, minimize all others, for example.

c. Allows user to move the group to a different workspace.

Best of all, this feature doesn't add complexity.  If newbies don't want to
bother with it, they'll never find it.  Advanced users can hunt it down and
use it to their advantage, though.

Problem: 2-rowed menus.  If there are multiple dividers, then it might look
as if programs are grouped vertically, when in fact they're not.  <thinking
out loud> maybe ditch the dividers and use rubber-band selection? </thinking
out loud>  Then again, I never liked 2-rowed menus.  Although they save
space, when there's a lot of programs open, and the programs are constantly
opened and closed, it's hard to find things because of its non-linearity.

Gerry