RE: Reprise of the panel layout proposal

[Jonas De Vuyst <jonas devuyst advalvas be>]

On 20 Jun 2001 17:02:01 -0700, Jared White wrote:
> How about making the main menu, running tasks menu, and the workspace pager
> into tabs? In other words, instead of having huge bars all over the place
> with buttons on them, just have little tabs that look like they're hanging
> onto the edge of the screen. When someone clicks on a tab, the tab would
> "slide out" to reveal a "menu" or "panel" connected to it. In fact, make it
> almost like a small drawer sliding out that contains widgets ala the drawers
> of Mac OS X. Is this too far out or does anyone else like the idea? I can do
> a simple graphical mockup if anyone's interested.

That would undo the advantages of Fitts' law and would require at least
two clicks to do something.

> 
> I think Gnome really needs to starting distancing itself in terms of
> graphical UI design from other OSes or desktop environments. I like your
> ideas, James, but I feel like they're a bit too similar to existing Mac OS
> or Windows paradigms. Not that there is anything "wrong" with that, but
> automatically assuming any UI designs that deviate from those existing
> paradigms are strange or confusing or undesirable is a REALLY bad thing,
> IMHO.
> 
> Any other ideas, folks?

Actually I've been having this idea to have something like the Nautilus
sidebar on a desktop level. The only difference would be that when all
slideovers (I just made that term up.. does it show ;) ) are hidden the
panel is hidden completely so the space is available to the desktop
(Nautilus should perhaps do this too).

In this sidebar I would place things like the Nautilus News, Tree and
Notes components as well as a bookmark and shelf (something that you can
drag 'n' drop or paste objects to for re-use later) component.

Besides these objects that are present or could be present in Nautilus I
was also thinking of placing some always-on applications in there. Some
ideas would be a music player (with playlist), an instant messenger, the
Evolution task list, calendar, etc..

How does this sound? If it doesn't make any sense it's because I'm tired
;-D.

(If there are follow-ups I'll reply tomorrow.)

- Jonas.