Re: Reprise of the panel layout proposal

[Arcterex <alan ufies org>]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 02:36:26AM +0200, Jonas De Vuyst wrote:
> 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.

Only assuming that everything is always collapsed.  Right now the main gnome
panel has the option of being hidden or not, and you have multiple clicks to
use it (I don't use it this way of course).  Also you could do something like
have it pull out if you hover the mouse over.  Of course, this wouldn't do
well with Fitts as you couldn't have a target to go to, but rather a
location->pause->move/click.

I like the idea though, maybe it could be incorporated into something else
(sawfish borders? gtk?).  I'd love to have my gnomeicu do that, as I find 
it very helpful to have it "open" all the time but there is no way to hide 
it nicely.  Clicking on the icon expands it to somewhere where my mouse isn't, 
and is generally to the last desktop it was expanded onto, not the desktop I'm 
currently on (is this a known bug?).  The "slide-hide" E method would rock 
for this.  


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