Re: Reprise of the panel layout proposal

[thristian atdot org]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 11:18:48PM -0700, Jared White wrote:
> Oh, yeah, I forgot about that -- I'm not too familiar with Mac OS prior to
> OS X. However, what you discribed was how you can make a normal Finder
> window into a window that will slide out from the screen edge when you click
> on its tab. This is somewhat similar, except that this is more of a
> menu-type widget that slides out. It's basically a way to be able to have
> two or three menus be always accessible without having a large bar getting
> in the way.

In Window Maker (and hence, presumably on NeXT) tear off a menu and
drag it so only the heading is visible on the edge of the screen.
Mouse over -> menu scrolls onto the screen. This is especially useful
when a menu pops up to the right of the current menu but there's not
enough room for it at the edge of the screen - the submenu pops up off
the screen and scrolls onto the screen when your mouse hits the edge
of the screen.

> > What I would like to see is an easier way to add stuff to the menus like
> > Apple has done.
> 
> Like Apple has done with what....the classic Apple menu?
> 
> You know, maybe something like this exists already, but what *I'd* like to
> see is a way to create a launcher button for a running program
> automatically. 

In Window Maker (and hence, presumably on NeXT) running an app for the
first time gives you an "app icon" at the bottom of the screen that
represents the application itself, not any of its windows, You can
drag the app icon to the Dock or the Clip or wherever, and it stays
there. 

> In other words, if I'm running "MySwellApp", and I want to
> create a button that will launch it upon being clicked, I could just drag
> "MySwellApp" from some kind of running tasks menu onto the launch bar -- or
> maybe click on a button somewhere that would create a launcher button for
> the foreground app. 

<snip>

Indeed. With all the talk of "user feedback on application launch" and
so forth, I really, *really* wish GNOME would consider appropriating
NeXT features for the Panel.

Specifically, imagine if when you clicked on a launcher in the panel,
the whole clickable-area around the launcher were shaded to the GTK
selection colour, which didn't go away until the first app window
appeared? How about a task-list where you could drag a task onto a
panel and have it create a launcher? 

These things *are* possible on X - Window Maker does 'em.

> Anyway, it's getting late, so I think I'll sign off for now. There's been
> some really good discussion here lately, IMO, so I hope the GNOME head
> honchos are listening! ;)

/me dreams of a Wonderful Desktop Environment... :P

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