Re: gnome "task" bar

["Michael J. Freeman" <mikef prism net>]

Ok, great, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, however, I
*do* like the task bar, a lot, I use it, and I want to use it more
efficiently, to be honest I pretty much hate every window manager that is
out there, thats why i'm trying to substitute GNOME for this.  I run fvwm,
but I don't use its task bar, I have all that crap commented out, so I
just see the gnome stuff, and i've changed around a lot of stuff to better
accomidate my likings.  I guess i'm not quite clear on the last part, did
you say you guys wanted GNOME doing sizing/touchy-looky-feel stuff like
the WM is suppose to do, or not, or perhaps optional?  Or am I am I
getting into stuff that you guys don't want GNOME to do, and want it to be
up to the user, let me know.

 On 5 Jun 1998, Tom Tromey wrote:

> 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
> 

Michael J. Freeman - mikef@prism.net
Prism Technologies