Re: Move across desktops

[Ryan Peters <sloshy45 sbcglobal net>]

On 02/06/2010 02:04 PM, William Jon McCann wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Kaj-Ivar van der Wijst
> <kaj-ivar vanderwijst com>  wrote:
>    
> > Hi everyone!
> >
> > I've been using lately the new way of navigating through the desktops, with
> > the horizontal scrollbar instead of an overview of all the available
> > desktops. I think this is a nice feature, even if I don't use it all the
> > time. However, I think we need a better way of scrolling, better than having
> > to click and drag the small scrollbar on the bottom of the screen.
> >
> > I'd suggest something like the iPod/iPhone interface way of scrolling: just
> > click and drag the whole screen, and when you release the mouse (stop
> > scrolling), it just moves a little further to simulate more real scrolling.
> > We could use this horizontally AND vertically, so we can not only use
> > desktops aligned from left to right, but also vertically stacked desktops, a
> > bit like the 'desktops overview' where you can see all the desktops at once.
> >
> > I hope you understand my idea.
> >      
> It would certainly be interesting to try this and see how well it works.
>
> Jon
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>    
Here's my two cents:

It's an interesting change that some users will like a lot, but I think 
our current method of scrolling is just fine (breadcrumbs might work a 
little better, though). However, dragging a window to another workspace, 
by this method, seems a little broken at the moment. Here's a better way 
it could work:

When you click and begin to drag on an application, lines symbolizing 
the various desktops you have open could appear over  the current 
desktop (with icons symbolizing what programs you have open in there). 
Dragging the program over a certain square/corner would cause it to be a 
little brighter than the rest, and letting go will move that application 
over to that desktop, and it will zoom back in. CTRL-clicking 
applications should be able to let you drag more than one application 
over at a time; this could make things go a lot faster.

About sliding it in an iPhone-style way: have you ever tried doing that? 
It's way faster to do the current way we have it (or even better, 
breadcrumbs as I mentioned earlier). Sliding it iPhone-style might work, 
but only on a touchscreen device (it could be an option or something, 
just in case there's a gnome-3 powered mobile device with a 
touchscreen), since dragging with a mouse just doesn't work like that 
(it's not very obvious, and it takes more effort than a standard, 
tried-and-true slider). Nice idea, but on a desktop/laptop, it just 
wouldn't work.