I think agree that this would be of value, but it is hard to say what the best solution would be. Maybe a better way, rather than organizing them on the outset, is to allow the user to define how they are organized: by application, by size, by name, whatever (maybe even give several criteria... first sort by app, then by name, then by last used). THat way, it allows even newbies to clue in to the feature because it would have a decent default... then as the needs of the user changes, so can the behaviour of the taskbar. However, point number 3 below sounds a lot like what Tog (www.akstog.com, i belive) says would be good interface design: GROUPS of dissimilar thing put into categories. In this case, it is just groups of applications, or a script that opens up several items, but the idea can be extended to documents, music, whatever. People don't think of things in terms of indidual things, we thing in amalgamated groups. The nearest thing we have to a "group" of things is a directory where one puts lots of similar docs. point 3b, etc. has already been done in sawfish, using LISP scripts. I love the scriptability of sawfish (now that I have gotten it to work :-), and more needs to be done to make this an easy feature to use. One of the coolest things about MacOS that few outside the Mac community knows about is applexccript, which essentially is a single scrtipting language for controlling EVERYTHING on your Mac. It is triviallly easy to make scripts that completely customize your experience (windowing, etc.). Last night, I just started to figure out hwo to make the Mac respond to voice commands, which then run applescripts. The point here is not to advocate Mac, but to show how cool interface stuff like that CAN be done. We CAN make a windowing environment easy to use and powerful, Usually people think that ease of use and power are mutually exclusive, but that is not the case: good ease of use allows one to easily do what they want. Dumbing down an interface is not ease of use, because it now makes doing what YOU want impossible. David Grega wrote: > I think items should also be draggable on the taskbar (start menu or > whatever the heck it is called) itself with the option of re-alphabetizing > the list very easily. I mean novice friendly, because knowing some > conservative Linux users (I don't mean to offend anyone here), they'd > consider the Windows procedure to re-alphabetize the Start Menu very > user-friendly. > > - Dave > > ---------- > From: Gerry Chu > Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 2:10 AM > To: GNOME-Gui > Subject: RE: Zooming dock > > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > gnome-gui-list mailing list > gnome-gui-list gnome org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-gui-list > > _______________________________________________ > gnome-gui-list mailing list > gnome-gui-list gnome org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-gui-list
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