Re: Workspace Switcher; Metacity; or Gnome -- whichever ??

[Polonkai Gergely <polesz w00d5t0ck info>]

Hello,

I do almost the same. However, I'm a "clean" person, and never use icons
on my desktop.
But..
All my games and "fun stuff" is in a so called drawer. So when I want to
play a game, e.g Neverwinter Nights, I open up my drawer, press the
appropriate button, and enjoy the game.
When I feel that I have to work, I close the game, and the drawer. I
defined some metacity shortcuts in gconf-editor (is there an application
for it already?), so when I press Ctrl-Alt-G, my editor (gvim) starts;
for Ctrl-Alt-F, firefox starts up. It's kinda workaround feeling, but it
works for me for about a year now.

Regards,
Gergely POLONKAI

William Case írta:
> Hi;
>
> I need some advice.  I want to put in a feature request but I am not
> sure where it should go. Workspace Switcher; Metacity; or Gnome --
> whatever ??  
>
> For over 2 years now I have been trying to somehow solve the following
> problem:  I want 2 or 3 completely different Desk Top environments.
> Call them my 'Play' environment and my 'Work' environment.
>
> 'Play' is usually a mess, a fun picture for a background; panel full of
> icons, launchers all over the screen.  When I have work to do, I like to
> work clean.  A simple background; sparse panel with only icons for those
> applications I use often in my work; file launchers for just the files I
> need for a project; research based bookmarks for frequently used
> URL's.  
>
> However, and here is where I get into problems, I want one mailbox for
> Evolution whether at 'work' or 'play'; a shared 'NoteCase' whether at
> 'work' or 'play'; and a shared 'tvtimes' to follow breaking news events.
>
> No work around seems to get all this.  I have tried setting myself up as
> two different users; I have tried  hard and soft linking my mailbox,
> calandar, todo etc.
>
> If I were a programmer, and IDE would kind of do the trick but my work
> projects are all non-IT.
>
> The ideal solution would be to have a cross between a work place
> switcher; gdmflexiserver; session manager; and, desktop switcher.  For
> example a new applet (which is beyond my abilities to create) that would
> keep the X windows running; remove the current panels, background and
> desktop and replace them with what I have chosen for that 'work' or
> 'play' environment.  I would simply have a name for each environment
> that could be launched as I needed it. 
>
> I could have the best of both worlds; keeping the applications that I
> use in both environments alive (same UID); while replacing everything
> else -- maybe each environment could be password protected.  It strikes
> me that this is not an unusual feature request.  Surely many people
> using computers have two or three compartments to their lives.
> Commercial artists who want to separate their Gimp setup etc. for work
> from recreational environments for themselves and their kids; Corporate
> workers who want to keep their home environment separate from work that
> they have to do at home; or as in my case, a place to play and a place
> to work that looks and feels like separate places for work and play.
>
> As I started out saying, that's the feature request I want to ask for
> but I don't know who I should ask it of. 
>