Enhanced Gnome tools

["Paul Smith" <pausmith nortelnetworks com>]

Hi all;

I know all about the arguments that have gone on for Gnome 2 between
people who want a unified, simpler desktop with less configurability and
more consistency, etc., vs. those who want all the bells and whistles
and fanciness.  I don't want to argue about which way is better, because
the Gnome team has obviously made their decision.


I'm wondering if anyone else is working on variants of Gnome
applications that try to put back some of the functionality that was
removed.  As in Windows land you can go out and find lots of widgets and
gadgets, not from Microsoft, that are more featureful versions of
Windows desktop tools, is there anything like that going on with Gnome?
I searched around for sites containing "Gnome add-ons" but didn't find
anything.


Let me give an example: the panel window list widget in Gnome 2 is quite
useless for me.  I'm sure it's fine if you have 5 or 10 windows open,
but it's very, very rare that I have less than 30 windows open on my
desktop.  Even with my 21" monitor at 1600x1200 resolution and the
window list taking up 75+% of the panel, I can't see enough of the
titles on the window widgets to know which one I want (by the nature of
the development work I do I have _lots_ of xterms open to all different
systems in the lab, etc. and the title is critical).

In the Gnome 1.4 panel I used the "grouping" feature which put all my
xterms in one button, which when clicked expanded to a window with all
the xterm titles, fully listed.  I was hoping the next version would
actually _add_ some features, such as sorting the contents of that
window which would have made it much easier to use, but instead that
feature was removed completely.  The new "grouping" command in Gnome 2's
panel just tries to colocate the windows together in the window list;
this doesn't help my problem which is real-estate based.


So, my question again: is anyone working on enhanced "utilities for
experts" for Gnome 2, like a better version of the window list?  Is
there some kind of back-door way to re-enable the 1.4 behavior in Gnome
2?

Or, do I have any other options for my situation, realistically?  Do I
have to dump Gnome (seriously, not being able to find the windows I need
_IS_ that big of an issue for me...)?

Thanks!

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Paul D. Smith <psmith nortelnetworks com>   HASMAT--HA Software Mthds & Tools
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.