Re: questions from a newbie

[Milan Bouchet-Valat <nalimilan club fr>]

Le vendredi 08 mai 2009 à 10:30 +0100, Ross Smith a écrit :
> [...]
Leaving people 	answer about other points.

> 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).
I'm not sure that exactly fits your request, but see the previous
"Breadcrumbs in the panel" thread in this list, with a screenshot of the
current state of Sander's branch.

> 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.
This sounds like the idea of Activities I'm trying to implement. See
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Activities for a description how what
they could be. Interacting with Zeitgeist on that regard is obviously a
goal.