Re: Launching vs. Raising an application...

[Liss Svanberg <lisss ydab se>]

In a previous letter Ami Ganguli [aganguli@interlog.com] wrote:

<stuff deleted>
> A common problem is confusion between launching and application
> and raising/maximizing an application that's already open.  I've
> often found users having trouble because they'd somehow opened
> a dozen or so copies of the same program.  New users find it intuitive
> that in order to get back an application that has "disappeared" (i.e..
> you've minimized it or hidden it behind a window)  you repeat
> whatever you did to start the thing in the first place.  Why not
> try to blur or eliminate the distinction between minimized and
> terminated applications?
>
> 1/  Each Gnome app creates a PID file when it starts.  If a previous
> PID file exists, check if the process is really running and take some
> action to maximize it, as this is probably what the user wants.

Well, here I am sitting, trying to find something nasty to point out because I don't like your idea at all. ;-)
But I cannot! <grin>
The more I re-reads your letter, the more I realize how really *userfriendly* this idea is, and gnome was supposed to be userfriendly...
Bah...
<pause>

<znip>
> 4/ Have applications save state and exit when they are minimized.
> As long as the application properly saves state, there need not
> be a distinction between exiting and minimizing a window.
<tjupp>

Yesss, I've fond it!
Imagine an application that works with large data.
Now, closing & reopening this app will
1) eat machine time.
2) fragmentarize memory.
3) swap a lot on my harddrive (when reloading that data)

No, I don't think this userfriendlyness is worth this...
Okay, if app's that worked with large datasets behaved in one way, while certain newbee applications that didn't handle large data...
Nah.

mvh
// Liss <evil things inc.>
liss@ydab.se