Re: DockBar-style minimization

[Ryan Peters <sloshy45 sbcglobal net>]

On 04/13/2010 05:00 AM, Tomasz Sterna wrote:
> 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
>
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>    
What I meant about Problem 1 is that there has been some recent 
discussion on how the best way to handle minimized windows could be. I 
know they are already handled like this, but it's too much effort for 
some people to have to go to the overlay to un-minimize a window. GNOME 
Shell is not finished (and perhaps never will be, knowing that software 
is never perfect) so contributing design ideas should be welcome.

I simply mean to suggest an alternate, somewhat more organized way to 
handle minimization. I like that "docking" concept you mentioned, but 
why would it have to be separate from minimization? Is there a need to 
develop an add-on/extension/plugin/patch for it? The issue that my 
design fixes is Problem 3, which could be more easily worded like this: 
"What if I want an application running in the background while being 
easily controllable without disrupting my work-flow (un-minimizing it)?".

I understand why the old notification area was unorganized and did not 
make much sense, and the new notification area cleans this up very, very 
nicely. The old notification area, however, made it easy to handle 
minimized programs without un-minimizing them. Showing minimized windows 
in the way I'm suggesting, or in a similar way, makes it easy to tell an 
application is minimized, and at the same time it restores the old 
functionality of letting applications run in the background in a much 
more organized way than before.

And by the way, sorry about using more than one term to refer to the 
notification area. I know that it isn't called the "system tray", I just 
simply thought that calling it more than one term would make it easier 
for people to understand what I was talking about.

PS: Sorry for my extremely long messages!