Re: interapplication communication

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Tue, 2010-01-05 at 00:02 +0100, Johannes Schmid wrote:
> Hi Owen!
> 
> > Why "without the [overview]"? - I can think of several reasons offhand
> > why a task list might be preferred to the overview for window switching:
> > 
> >  - You can look find a window with your eyes and then mouse directly
> >    to it.
> > 
> >  - There's less window motion, so it's easier to understand the
> >    change when a window is raised or lowered and thus easier to
> >    build a mental model of where things are.
> > 
> >  - The overview takes a fraction of a second to come up, and more
> >    if the shell is performing badly on your system.
> 
> Combining the three above points: I see a problem that at least for me,
> the overlay is kind of a context switch that I might not want when
> should changing the window (for example, checking the download-window of
> firefox, if the download has finished).
> In GNOME 2.x I don't have a context switch here - I just bring a little
> utility window to foreground with the tasklist.

You are going to get a message window popping up in the message tray
when the download completes. And you'll be able to click on the Firefox
icon in the message tray area to see access your completed downloads
(old messages), so what would make sense to me is to simply put the
current download in that menu as well, and get rid of the need to have
the download window entirely.

The larger extension of that is that we want window switching to be
about switching what you are doing, and not about polling for changes.

There's obviously plenty of work to be done to get all applications on
board with that story.

> > But if you just say "without the overview" then you are defining the
> > problem being in terms of the solution; we can't discuss how the
> > overview might be modified to improve it, or what the pros and cons
> > are of non-overview solutions.
> 
> Don't get me wrong. I already pointed out why I think the overview isn't
> a perfect solution by now above. But I will happily accept ideas that
> improve the overview in some way so that it easier to use.
> 
> Let's see which solutions exist in GNOME 2.x to switch windows/tasks:
> * tasklist
> * alt-tab
> 
> Now in gnome-shell we have
> * overlay
> * alt-tab
> 
> I think most non-power users don't use alt-tab because they don't know
> anything about keyboard-shortcuts. I never used alt-tab in the past 4
> weeks of using gnome-shell though I consider myself a power-user. Have
> you got any other data that says that people use alt-tab regularly?

Well, I know *some* people use alt-Tab regularly, because I do (in GNOME
Shell or GNOME 2). I also know that most people don't use alt-Tab. 

But that's not particularly relevant data, because the primary way of
switching applications in GNOME Shell is the Overview, not alt-Tab. 

We've put effort into alt-Tab (like adding mousing) because we felt it
could be made better, and better integrated with the concepts of the
shell. We might expect some power users to do certain things with
alt-Tab that they might have done otherwise in GNOME 2. But in general
users will use the Overview to switch windows.

> What I noticed though is for example that I forgot about open
> chat-windows or other things because there is simply no indication that
> they are there when you are working with full-screen windows which I do
> all the time. (Maybe I am a full-screen-nazi...) The window-list as some
> kind of help for remembering open windows is no longer there. What's the
> solution for that in gnome-shell?

Well, the bluntest answer here is that if a window isn't important to
what you are doing right now, it's good that you forgot it! If the
person you are communicating with says something else, that will appear
to you in the message tray, but otherwise, the fact that the window is
open is irrelevant and potentially distracting information.

- Owen