Re: Testing & A Suggestion :)

["Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero" <famrom idecnet com>]

robsc dingoblue net au (2000-11-24 at 1759.21 +1100):
> Gosh, 256 pixels wide - thats 1/4 of my screen width (and probably 1/4
> of the width of a lot of individuals) . Also, what if someone likes
> knowing about all their windows - i.e. the taskbar is really big.

1152 * 864 screen here, but panel autohide set to 1 pixel. I also use
shade over for some windows, so the wasted space is minimal. Are my
settings weird? Maybe, but they work for me, and also demostrate that
defaults are never always good for everyone (just for some users, if
well done a lot of users) and that users should try weird things if
they feel the need so coders should allow weird things (setting a
small limit would disallow what I do). I can pass URL of photos of how
my settings look if anybody want.

> 	The other problem with keeping it simple-taskbared is as
> follows. Suppose I have 27 windows happening, 23 of them netscape, 3 of
> them xterms and say, one of them an emacs window with some source code
> in it. 
> 	How do I get to the emacs window using the taskbar? Well, even
> assuming that it's visible on an enormous taskbar, I have to scan my
> eyes of 27 different items. not pleasant. However, if all the
> netscapes were 'compressed' into a singly entry, and the same for the
> xterms - and we only have 3 items on our taskbar - Not a problem!
> 	Do you see what i mean? Granted, having 23 netscapes open at a
> time is quite silly - and I haven't done it, but you see my point, I hope.

Yes, I see your point, but you also moved the problem to the "this
kind of app has too many windows" level. BTW, 23 NS are not silly with
all those "silly" web boards (instead of mailing lists or newsgroups)
I have opened over 50 trying to read lot of posts in a single 3 minute
call (it was in Windows, where NS behaved acceptably... but you can
apply to other things, like lots of xterms, I know people that open a
lot, I open over ten sometimes). See, my local UI has to solve other
UI problems (sad but true).

> Agreed :) Adding it as an option is good. Keeping the semantics
> correct, though, is difficult. I think the issues are when things
> should become drop downs (i.e. what triggers a drop-down menu in a
> tasklist? more than a certain number of entries in the tasklist? more
> than a certain number of entries about a certain program? the devil is
> always in the detail.

Yep. For me I would keep it to never use menus. For default, I guess
that as soon as the buttons become unreadable, they should convert to
one button and menu per family, adding some kind of arrow (pointing
where?) or drop widget decor (reactangle sometimes, varies with theme)
or "..." (abused, already in menus if you set them to use that) to
show they are now multiple items all in one.

> > Maybe you should use workspace in a logical manner, ie: this for
> > Netscape, that one for wordprocessing (or any other system your mind
> > like: colors, first letter of window title, order of launch...).
> I do: but it's difficult to remember. it's nice to have as pleasant a
> fallback as possible.

Desktop with names? I set mine to plain ordered words, but you can set
them to things like "Terms" or "Netscapes". BTW, difficult for you,
not for me (I guess I never put my brain in "no gear"). :]

GSR