Re: gnome "task" bar

[Tom Tromey <tromey cygnus com>]

Michael> My question is, what is GNOME trying to accomplish, it has a
Michael> task bar at the bottom with pretty little things like a
Michael> window manager, you call programs from it like a window
Michael> manager, etc etc, so why would you want to run a window
Michael> manager if gnome does nearly the same thing.

This program, the panel, is just one part of Gnome.  It isn't Gnome
identically, and it isn't required in any real sense.

The panel doesn't provide everything a wm provides.  E.g., it doesn't
provide window decorations or manipulation.

Not all wms provide a task bar.  Of course, some do (and yours
probably does).

So really the panel and some wms have overlapping functionality.


You still need a wm no matter what.  Otherwise, you won't have any way
to move your windows around.

If you don't like the panel, don't run it.

If you like it, but it conflicts with what your wm does, find a way to
resolve the problem.  E.g., reconfigure your wm.  Or get them to play
well together (people are apparently working on this for various wms).

I agree that the panel is perplexing given that some wms provide
similar capabilities.  But I don't see it as a critical issue (as the
panel is not required).

Michael> My question is, is GNOME trying to resemble a window manager
Michael> or something much higher (advanced programming enviroment
Michael> yadda yadda).  The reason I am asking this is because
Michael> hopefully I plan to become another GNOME developer, mainly
Michael> for personal use.  I do not want to go all out and do all
Michael> these crazy things to GNOME, send it to the GNOME team, and
Michael> change concepts.. Input is welcome of course.

Gnome is a desktop environment.  It is not any single program.  It is
sort of a collection of programs (but not really).  I say "not really"
because you can't point to any one piece and say, "that is a required
piece of Gnome".

Most users will probably end up using whatever we ship, though.  So in
that basic sense Gnome is gmc, the panel, gnome-help, gnomecal,
same-gnome, gnomines, etc, etc.

The unifying themes are: (1) implementation technology (a unifying
theme I disagree with, mostly, but there it is), (2) a GUI Style
Guideline (which is a work in progress), (3) a collection of standard
protocols (session management, drag-and-drop, eventually various CORBA
things).

I know this doesn't really clear things up, but I hope it is a finger
pointing in the right direction.

Feel free to bring up crazy ideas on the list.  That seems to be what
it is for :-)


If this doesn't really help, I'm happy to try to clarify things.
You'll have to help me understand what needs clarification.

Tom