Re: Running vs starting apps

[thristian atdot org]

On Thu, Nov 23, 2000 at 02:30:55PM -0500, Alan Shutko wrote:
> "Blad, John Erling" <john erling blad aftenposten no> writes:
> > Really *why the distinction between the start
> > menu and the taskbar*.
> 
> My taskbar has two entries on it right now (what's running on this
> desktop) whereas the foot menu has 107 entries.  It is often the case
> that I want to see what I have running, and I don't want to dig
> through menus with 107 entries.

I don't know if you counted your foot-menu's items, but I know *my*
footmenu has an awful lot of stuff. And in the next room there's a
Win95 PC with a Start menu that overflows into two columns. 

But I pretty much never use the foot menu - I've a top-level launcher
for gnome-terminal, and a series of drawers for pretty much every app
I'll ever need. On Win9x, I use the QuickLaunch bar right *next* to
the Start button to store the programs I'll be using mostly (having no
compunction against trashing all the IE junk in there).

I think the lesson to be learned is storing Every Possible Program in
a menu is a Very Silly Idea. Transitioning the Panel so Launcher
buttons pretty much *were* the taskbar - much like WindowMaker, would
be a good idea. The actual list of Every Possible Program Ever should
probably be stored in a tree widget in a top-level window, and the
foot menu can show this window (if clicked and already shown, bring to
top).

Have a section of the taskbar made over to running programs with no
launchers (a new taskbar) where you could drag and drop a running
program elsewhere on the panel to make a launcher for it. Of course,
this means either you have two buttons on the panel with the same
icon, or you have to dive through panel drawers to find the program
icon and make it hidden, shaded, sticky or killed.


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