Re: DockBar-style minimization

[Tomasz Sterna <tomek xiaoka com>]

Dnia 2010-04-12, pon o godzinie 20:19 -0500, Ryan Peters pisze:
> Problem 1: How do we handle minimized windows?

All minimized windows are accessible in Activities overview.
Either with application button on the sidebar, or by clicking on the
window directly.
See: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Tour#Applications


> Problem 3: What if I liked the old functionality?
> 
> The old functionality had several uses that could be considered useful. 
> For example, lets say Rhythmbox doesn't fit into any of my workspaces 
> and I don't want to shove it away to its own workspace. I could minimize 
> it to my system tray, and if I needed to skip a song or turn 
> notifications on/off, I could right-click it and a menu would pop up. Or 
> if I wanted to run a Bit-torrent client in the background without having 
> a window up; I could minimize that to the tray as well. This 
> functionality is missing in the new, yet more organized system tray.

In GNOME 2 this is handled by panel applets. You may create a small
application window and put it directly on the gnome-panel, and show
application state on it, and access application functionality.

Notification area is just what it name suggests - a way of notifying of
events. Nothing more.
It is being often misused to archive applets functionality - probably by
Windows influence (you are calling it "system tray" which it isn't -
just looks similar).


What will happen to panel applets though is still unclear to me.
http://bloc.eurion.net/archives/2009/gnome-shell-window-list/comment-page-1/#comment-4607 points that there should be no distinction between panel applet and real window.
Staying with the Rhythmbox example:
Rhythmbox could signal the window manager that it is able to handle
"docked" state (a very small representation of itself) and window
manager could put "dock" button beside "minimize" button on its frame.
Whether we show this "docked" state on top panel, Activities sidebar or
any place else is up to discussion.
(I was googling, but could not find this discussion, so please forgive
me if it was talked before.)
One thought about top panel content I found is here:
http://blog.fishsoup.net/2009/10/07/gnome-shell-2-28-0-a-preview/#comment-2224


> http://imgur.com/BoLcm.png
> http://imgur.com/vJ1dP.png
> 
> When you right-click a group of minimized windows, a custom menu similar 
> to how the old system tray icons worked could pop-up. This menu's 
> contents are dependent on the application, and it returns the old and 
> useful functionality in an organized, more-useful way. It reduces the 
> redundancy of having options you can access with the window you 
> currently have open by limiting you to using them when the program's 
> running in the background.

Applications already have this kind of menu.
Just go into Activities overview and right click on application button
on the sidebar.
See: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Tour#Applications