Do/not implement Dock.

[Tomasz Sterna <tomek xiaoka com>]

Dnia 2010-04-15, czw o godzinie 00:59 -0600, Sean Brady pisze:
> I have 3 Firefox windows open and 2 terminals on 2 desktops- with the
> overview all the Firefox and all the terminals look identical.  I have
> to mouse over each one to get to what I am looking for.  That's not
> very efficient at all, and quite frankly I am finding it frustrating
> to the point of considering discontinuing it's use.

I would argue that 3 identical firefox icons and 2 identical terminal
icons are even less distinguishable. This is one of the usability
failures of Dock I already mentioned.

With overview, you see window contents and can easily pick the one
you're interested in. It's exactly the window you want and remember -
just smaller.


> Another thing that you have to realize is that by activating the 
> overview, you change the appearance of the entire screen, which can be
> very confusing sometimes.  The change in the entire visual appearance,
> with windows moving around to order then back again, leaves the user 
> lost sometimes.  I feel like I never know where things are. 

That's why the transitions are animated. Every window is animated from
the point it originally was and shrunk to the overview position, and
grew back when you leave the overview. This keeps spatial connections
and is designed to work with human brain cognitive abilities.

Maybe your gfx card is not able to handle the transition well, and
everything just jumps from place to place for you? I see very smooth
window transitions on Intel G31.