Re: Trying the shell

[Greg K Nicholson <greg gkn me uk>]

2009/11/22 Reiner Jung <reiner jung uni-oldenburg de>:
> This is good to hear. However, what will happen to:
> - gnote/tomboy
> - system monitor applet
> - Kill app
> - Keyboard selector
> etc.

Notes apps might live in the sidebar / gadget layer / whatever it ends
up being. Or, once the documents display in the overview gets tooled
up with support for Zeitgeist (an intelligent database of what you've
done and when), I'd imagine your notes would be readily accessible
from there.

Keyboard selector would stay in the top panel, as it shows system status.

I'm not sure where a kill app button should live. Probably in the
overview with other programs, but there's the issue of what happens
when the misbehaving application makes getting into the overview
problematic. Personally, I keep xkill on a keyboard shortcut.

Logically, I'd expect the system monitor display to go in the top bar,
since it shows system status.

> I think this is not a good idea, because when you think task oriented you
> have more than one app open on a desktop. For example, when I work there are
> sometime multiple shells open side by side, as well as some notes from
> gnote. However, the screen is too small to show them all and it would be too
> time consuming to switch desks just for the notes. In these cases it is
> important that you can select the right window by clicking on a button (e.g.
> window list)

I'd say it's important that you can select the right window quickly
and easily. But, yeah; I expect that's a fairly common use-case.

I think the idea here is that you'd probably be using no more than
about 3 windows at a time, and that you can probably remember which
window you used last. So, Alt+Tab to get to that one, and Alt+Tab,Tab
to get to the other.

I agree, though, that I sometimes find switching between 3 or more
windows less-than-ideal.

In Gnome 2 I would point at the window list and scroll—the instant
feedback of immediately showing the destination window in-place was
helpful. I'd like Gnome 3's Alt+Tab to do this too.

…

> I have not a perfect solution for that. Maybe a bar could appear on purpose
> showing a list of apps/windows on one desktop. BTW: The Alt-Tab cycling is a
> typical Windows idea. It solves the window selection problem in the worst
> way, because you have to remember your position (the position of the current
> window in the list of windows) and you have to known how often you have to
> say Alt-Tab to get o the target window. You are faster with a clickable
> list.

I agree relativity is sub-optimal. I don't think clickability is
always faster, though. (Besides, the Alt+Tab pop-up is clickable.)

I always keep each app on a particular workspace so I know to find
Pidgin in the top-left of the overview, Banshee in the top-right, etc.

Windows 7's solution of pinning apps in fixed positions on the task
bar and giving each its own persistent keyboard shortcut seems like a
good approach for their environment.

I think predictable positioning or ordering of windows (as has been
suggested) would improve Gnome 3's overview. But I can't find a way to
reconcile unchanging ordering with Alt+Tab being a quick way to switch
to the last-used window.

> p.s. And I have to say I am really impressed by the good work you have done

I personally haven't done *any* work on gnome-shell :) I just happened
to know the answers to some of your questions.