Re: interapplication communication

[William Jon McCann <william jon mccann gmail com>]

Heya,

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 4:58 PM, Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 16:27 -0500, Mark Curtis wrote:
...
>> But the main problem with the overview as opposed to Windows 7 or OS X
>> is that it requires user interaction.
>> By default, without user interaction, a person can see what programs
>> are running in Windows 7, OS X, GNOME 2.X, KDE, etc
>
> In OS X, the indication of what programs are running is normally very
> subtle - if the program is already on the dock, a shiny blue dot is
> added under it the dock. (And running apps might not have windows open,
> so it's even less of an indication of what you are doing.)
>
> I forget the exact feedback mechanism for running apps in Windows 7,
> but it's on the same order.

They look slightly raised up, with a "card" like thing behind them.

>> This is currently not the case with GNOME Shell.  Also no matter what
>> sort of changes are done to the overlay the point is that it needs to
>> be activated in the first place.
>>
> It's meant to be very fast to activate the overview - you just slap
> your pointer into the corner, then back to select the window.

Yup.  In fact it is designed to be able to be done without looking or
aiming.  Intermediate users can learn to take advantage of the
hot-corner and not even have to glance away from the center of the
screen.  Simply flick the pointer, press the logo key, or use a
hardware button.  This behavior will never need to vary.  It will
always work.  This is very much not the case for window lists -
particularly those that we have in GNOME 2 that vary per workspace.

>> I do find it interesting you mention "window titles get  abbreviated
>> beyond comprehensibility..." and yet in the applications menu of the
>> overlay there are STILL truncated applications names (which also
>> obscure the blue dots)
>
> Clearly the ellipsized application name problem is an issue, which we
> need to fix; the main mechanism for that requires distribution help - we
> need to say "Firefox" not "Firefox Web Browser", and so forth.
> But how is that related here?

Right, the app name and window title aren't the same.  As for window
identification we do much better than GNOME 2's window list I think.
For one we show the window itself to use recognition rather than
recall of the window's title.  In addition, we have more room to show
the title and will rarely ellipsize it.

> The "glow" is intentionally under the application name.

It is still unclear whether we will keep the glow effect.  We haven't
really been that happy with it.

Jon