questions from a newbie

[Ross Smith <myxiplx googlemail com>]

Hi folks,

I've just heard about gnome-shell, and like what I see.  I do have a
few concerns though, and I hope you don't mind me asking about some of
them here.

First of all though, I *love* the Activities menu, and the whole look
of that top panel.  The overall concept is just superb, and I think
you deserve a 10/10 for what's been done so far.

This email has turned out a bit longer than expected, so I'm going to
split it into sections:


1. Fine tuning of preferences in a GUI
========================================
My main concern is that you're replacing compiz.  Now I can understand
the reasons for this, and in general while I like the flashy effects
(and they're a big selling point when converting people), I'm
confident that you guys are doing just as good a job.

What I am worried about is loosing my preferences and the ability to
customize the way things behave.  I've changed a lot of the speeds in
compiz to my desktop is nice and snappy, and I think one of Compiz'
biggest strengths is the way you have both a simple and a complex
settings manager, so normal users can just set it up, but if you're
interested in tweaking, there's a really nice, detailed GUI where I
can tweak just about everything.

I appreciate this is more for power users than general ones, but I'd
love to see that kind of flexibility built into gnome-shell.
Something that lets me adjust the animation speed and timings, and all
the different behaviors from an easy to understand GUI.


2. Compiz plugins
========================================
While I think this is probably impossible, if there's any way at all
you can use compiz plugins (or just enable plugins so that people can
migrate compiz ones over), that would be great.

Things I'd really like to keep are:
- Desktop cube & cube rotation (it's great to show off, and I prefer
it to the current gnome-shell workspace switcher, I think the visual
analogy is spot on, an it highlights the fact that each workspace is
separate)
- compiz-deskmenu.  Kind of specific, but I'm really finding this useful.
- Scale.  Invaluable, I've mapped it to ctrl-alt-tab, and use it as a
switcher when I have a lot open
- Ring switcher.  I love being able to choose the animation I like
when switching between programs.


3. A suggestion for a new panel workspace switcher
========================================
While we're talking about plugins, a new one I'd really like to see
would be something like this:

Quick workspace switcher
A gnome panel applet that activates on mouse-over, and pops out a
small thumbnail panel of all your workspaces.  Kind of like the
existing switcher, but with a few of benefits:
- it doesn't take up so much space on the panel (4 dual screen
workspaces is getting a bit large)
- ability to support more workspaces (you can forget things like a 4x2
layout with the current one, this would handle even 4x4 fine).
- the user could decide the size of the preview window
- you get a full graphical preview of the programs running on each workspace
- it's still a one click action to switch workspaces
- clicking the panel app could bring up a full screen view of all
workspaces (arranged like compiz scale).


4. Musings on Workspaces as a way of linking programs
========================================
I can see me using absolutely tons of workspaces with gnome-shell.
For me, in gnome-shell a workspace is now just a place to keep related
items or projects grouped together, and since Ubuntu hardly ever needs
rebooting, I'll just keep workspaces open until that task is finished.

Now, what might be nice is a way to close a workspace, and all the
programs within it in one go.  Would be great when I've finished with
a job.

Hmm... thinking about it, I wonder if Zeitgeist can use workspaces as
a way of linking items?
... and should the Actions menu be able to show tasks for that workspace?
... in fact, that could be superb - separate recent document and
program lists for each workspace!!  Great for power users.

Ross