Hi everybody! I see lots of really nice looking designs being tested out lately, but so far the buttons to close workspaces and to get info for objects have seen no changes beyond the first iteration. I don't really have enough know-how in this project's code to fix it myself, but I can sure do suggestions! First of all, workspaces. Is there a technical reason why the user can't close any empty workspace he chooses in any order he chooses? I'm picturing a really fun computer prank right now: when someone walks away from his desk, mash that big Plus button for a few minutes... Figuring out the order in which to close workspaces again is really painful. My big issue right now, though, is the placement of that Close button, which only makes that pain worse. Clicking on the center of a workspace to _close_ it is not obvious. I would expect clicking on the center of a workspace to focus it. The current nightly build of Chromium has something for the new tab page that may be worth borrowing. When the user hovers over a thumbnail, a little blue bar appears above it (much like a usual window title bar). Close on the top right, and a pin button to the left. While adding extra buttons kind of goes beyond the scope of what I'm suggesting here, that popping bar /would/ add a nice platform for the UI belonging to workspace-related functions. (I believe workspace saving was in the original brainstorm, for example...). Quick mockup here: <http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2333/workspacecloseafter.jpg> (Before: <http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/9981/workspaceclosebefore.jpg>) Another option is just a solid, floating Close button, but to the top right. Not the middle. If the shell is going to be a conduit as opposed to a destination, it needs to have as few gotchas as possible. Changing the defacto placement of the close button (and, for that matter, making it a "Do Not Enter" sign) feels like one of those gotchas. The Details button for applications and documents could do with a similar touch-up. It's an awesome thing. Click it and you get a nice pane with information. In the future, that pane could be extended in some really great ways, I bet. (Recent documents opened by applications, courtesy of Zeitgeist, for example). So, it seems silly to me that we hide that rather important piece of functionality in a tiny icon on such a huge bit of space. Especially so, since hiding the icon doesn't actually save space; it's already reserved for the icon. We can't expect people to find this feature or use it with ease when it takes a moment of hovering over a document for the Details button to appear, then actually aiming the mouse at the little icon takes further work. (As opposed to just pointing to the right of the document and clicking in a care-free manner). A solution may be to draw a more visible block to the right side of that document where the Info button is always visible. This way it's an easy to click, obvious hot spot that the user could be attracted to. Even if it takes up 100% vertical space, the Details button should probably only be fully lit when it is, itself, being hovered (as opposed to the document it refers to). As things are, clicking near the Details button is a dangerous act; for me, it is uncertain whether I'm clicking that details button or about to "really open" the document. Thanks, Dylan McCall
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