Re: Tiny application buttons again (was: Do/not implement Dock.)

[Dylan McCall <dylanmccall gmail com>]

On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 8:35 AM, Mark Curtis <merkinman hotmail com> wrote:
> "Usability first, EyeCandy later..."
> EXACTLY!! People like myself,Sean Brady, and the countless other people that
> have commented on this whenever this sort of thread pops up in the mailing
> list, feel the way you switch apps now in GNOME shell IS A USABILITY ISSUE,
> that needs to be fixed.  The only mouse driven way to switch currently is
> via the overlay, which arguably is more eye candy than usability.  I've
> pointed out how it's more mouse movement (compared to the 2.X window list)
> and the buttons are smaller (compared to the 2.X window list).
>

I feel I should jump to the buttons being smaller there. Just think
what could be done with those application entries if they had more
space! New Window could be a primary function instead of something
that must be accessed through a context menu (which limits the
feature's user base to about six people). The application title could
be big; there could be an actual textual description of what it is
doing. Just imagine the possibilities!

Meanwhile, that Documents list is enormous. I'm wondering if that list
taking up half the screen actually makes it more useful. Has anyone
tried listing just items from the past two days (taking queues from
Zeitgeist's activity journal) and using, maybe, half the space?

And on the original topic, here's Apple's Exposé:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Expose_in_spaces.png
Note that the windows are not strictly tiled, but positioned in an
efficient way that moves them as little as possible. There is probably
an idea or two to be gained from there.



> I loved the idea of breadcrumbs, but the GNOME devs would rather just waste the
> space right of the Activities menu to show you the active application and maybe
> some mysterious 'menu' if they ever get around to it.

For the application menu part, is it possible to borrow the
Application Indicator spec? It's used downstream in Ubuntu, and KDE is
pretty cool with it as well.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopExperienceTeam/ApplicationIndicators
If the top right is reserved for specific system stuff, those other
buttons should go _somewhere_ and that may be a good opportunity.


Dylan