Re: Re : interapplication communication

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Tue, 2009-12-29 at 23:08 -0800, Nicolas de Fontenay wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> I have to side with Felipe here. We must be able to switch one
> application to another with a mouse click.

You can, of course, switch windows with a single mouse click using the
overview :-)

> I know a lot of people reluctant to use ALT + TAB. Starting by my
> mother and dad.

On the other hand, your mother and father likely switch windows far less
than you do. The hyper-kinetic style of constantly switching between
windows is pretty much an advanced user thing.

For users that aren't constantly hopping between windows, the fact that
the overview is slightly further away or slower isn't going to be a
problem. My biggest concern (to be investigated in user testing) is that
the overview might be disorienting to the slower moving class of users.

Our hope is that message tray will further reduce the need to
switch windows - that you won't need to switch windows because a new
message came in, or your music player shuffled to a track you don't
like. You'll only need to switch windows if you decide to do something
different.

> But why not make it flexibe?
> 
> Basically, anybody new to gnome shell, looking for a way to switch
> windows will look for a place where they are listed to click on.
> Users should be given the option of having a docking bar with
> currently open apps:
>     a) from the active workspace only
>     b) from all workspace
>     c) No dock bar at all (use of alt + tab implied)
> 
The GNOME philosophy is really that configuration is the last resort;
having a permanent application or window list available as an extension,
or even an option isn't wrong, but, without changing any options, things
have to work great. Because most users will never change options. We
don't want to be in the situation where the word on the street is that
GNOME 3 is great, if you know to go to the options and turn on the
window list.

> I like the current dock bar at the bottom of gnome. I can hide it if I
> want to. I think the auto hide option is good enough.

In general, I think auto-hidden stuff is not generally a good default,
because it's well, hidden. The user has to have a good concept of what
goes where before you can hide it away.

The message tray is meant to be self-introducing, because it pops up by
itself when something comes in. So hopefully, going back to the bottom
of the screen will be natural to users; they'll pick up the idea that
"messages are at the bottom"

- Owen